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Welcome to my Manga page. Manga is basically Japanese comics. They have a certain style, which does vary from manga to manga, but is quite consistent. There are some examples of stereotypical manga below. There is a very wide variety of manga, starting from manga aimed at very small children, such as Pokemon, going right up to manga aimed at adults about serious issues. The most common types usually talked about is shounenn and shoujo. Shounenn manga is for boys, and mainly consists of fighting, but this is just a stereotype. You get a lot of variety in shounenn, ranging from Doraemon to To-LOVE-Ru Trouble to Tsubasa Chronicles. Shoujo is for girls, and mainly consists of romance, but again this is a stereotype. I haven’t read that many shoujo manga, but I gather that there is a lot less fights and blood compared to shounenn, and there is a little less variety. There are many more varieties of manga, covering everything from business and commerce, mystery and horror to history and culture. But I tend to keep to the shounenn and shoujo, as it is the genre that my age range tend to read. In Japan, manga is usually sold in magazines, with single chapters of several different stories in the same magazine which will be continued onto the next week (if it is a shyuukann) or the next month (if it is a gekkann). There are certain magazines aimed at certain people. For example, for small children, there is the Shyougakusei (translated as: primary school student) which will include help on school work as well as manga aimed at the age range. For teenage girls there is a range of magazines such as Ribon, Nakayoshi, which include shoujo manga, and also fashion tips etc. For teenage boys the most popular magazines (from what I pick up) are Shounenn Jump and Shounenn Magazine. These include shounenn manga (and little else). Obviously, these magazines do not have to be read by certain age groups, you often find grown men reading Shounenn Jump and women reading Ribon. Also, these are but name a few, there are a whole range of magazines out there. Manga writers (or manga-ka) try to get their manga published in one of these magazines, as this will gurantee them an audience straight away. People are sure to buy the magazines to continue reading their own favourite manga, and will read the new work alongside it. If the manga gets popular enough, they will publish the manga in a set of tanko-bons (comic books) with several chapters in each book. If the manga increases in popularity even more, they will create an anime of it, which is usually publicised a lot in the magazine which first launched the manga. Manga does not have to be written first, sometimes it is written after an anime has been produced for example Deltora Quest. Sometimes it is written from a book eg. or the other way round. Bleach was written as a manga to start with, then converted into a book. Manga has a certain style, which does vary between shounenn and shoujo, but is relatively similar throughout. The face is simplified, and features such as the eyes are emphasized, while the nose is usually quite small. The hair is used to show movement, which happens a lot in anime as well. The hands are usually bigger in proportion, and the legs are also longer and slimmer than reality. You can get manga where none of the characters look ugly or ill proportioned, eg. Tsubasa Chronicles but I prefer manga such as Bleach where the characters look like actual people that could exist. For a more detailed description of manga style, and tips on how to draw manga, click here. If you’re learning Japanese and you try to read manga, you’ll find that it’s actually quite different because manga uses a lot of slang words, especially if you’re reading shounenn. So I thought I would put a bit of my website into explaining certain words and phrases so that you can all enjoy manga properly...there is nothing worse than manga being ruined because of lousy translation! Click here for the Manga Language page. Here are some of the manga I recommend to read. Links to online manga readers are on my links page. Please just have a look at some of these, you don’t have to read them all, but they are all good! Summary: Ichigo Kurosaki is 15, has naturally bright orange hair and can see spirits. He has been able to see them from birth, but has kept this a secret and has sometimes helped spirits when they have been troubled by humans who can’t see them. One day, after helping a young girl ghost scare away gangsters who were knocking down her flowers, he meets Rukia Kuchiki, a death god (shinigami). Rukia comes from the Soul Society, and her duty as a death god is to help spirits find their way safely back to the Soul Society and to kill Hollows: spirits that have lost their sanity and eat souls to survive. As they are talking, a Hollow breaks into the house and attacks Ichigo’s family, who cannot see spirits. Ichigo, feeling that it is his fault that his family were attacked (because Hollows tend to hunt for souls that have a strong spiritual power i.e. people who can see spirits), faces the Hollow, but just as the Hollow is about to attack Ichigo, Rukia jumps between them, saving Ichigo’s life and mortally wounding herself. There is now only one way in which Ichigo can save his family and Rukia. He must thrust Rukia’s zanbakutou (japanese sword) into his heart so that her death god power will transfer into him, and he will become a death god himself. Summary: Syaoran is a young adopted son of an archeologist. Although his father is now dead, Syaoran continues his archeological work to uncover the Clow World’s ancient ruins as it was his father’s important dream. Sakura is the princess of Clow World, and has known Syaoran since they were young. She often goes and visits him when he comes home from the archeological digs, even though her brother, the king of Clow, doesn’t approve. Syaoran and Sakura have a very close friendship but are unable to express their feelings for one another. One day, when Sakura is visiting Syaoran at the site of the ancient ruins, she gets drawn to an unusual symbol carved onto the ruin’s floor. On touching it, the ground begins to shake and the stone floor opens up, revealing another set of ancient ruins that the archeologists have never seen before. Syaoran is unable to stop Sakura as she floats unconsciously below the floor, surrounded by an eerie light. By the time Syaoran gets to her, she is floating on a high wall, against the same symbol that she touched. Wings have sprung out of her body, and she begins to melt into the wall behind her. At that moment Syaoran, who has been climbing the wall to get to her, grabs Sakura and they both fall to the floor. Sakura’s wings burst and the glowing feathers fly off in different directions, leaving the Clow World. Sakura suddenly becomes very cold, and stiff. What must Syaoran do to save Sakura’s life? In the Celes World, Fai D. Flowright has just put a mysterious king to sleep in the bottom of a lake. If the king wakes, he will definitely hunt down Fai. Fai must leave the Celes World, and find a means to escape. In Old Japan, Kurogane, a ninja, has gone against Princess Tomoyo’s orders and killed again. Tomoyo doesn’t approve of Kurogane’s blood thirstiness and sends him on a journey out of their world to find the true meaning of strength. The three journeys that start, each will have a different motive, but they all have the same solution. Because in this world, there is no such thing as coincidence, just destiny... Summary: Tohru Honda is a high-school girl living very independently in a tent for the time being. Her mother died in a car accident and since her father died ages ago, she has nowhere to stay until her grandfather’s renovation on his house is finished. However, the woods which she is staying in actually belong to a very mysterious family: the Sohmas. When Yuki Sohma, a handsome boy in the same class as Tohru, discovers that she is living in their woods, he and Shigure Sohma urge her to stay with them until she is able to move back into her grandfather’s house. However, when Kyo Sohma (another boy of Tohru’s age) enters (or more correctly, falls through the roof of) the house, Tohru discovers the Sohma family secret. They transform into one of the twelve zodiac animals if a member of the opposite sex hugs them!! Summary: Emma is a maid for an old lady who lives in London. Her life is pleasant monotony, and she does all the household chores perfectly. However, her life changes when the old lady’s former pupil, William Jones, visits the house. They fall in love at first sight, but William is one of the rich Jones family, who are of high status and rank in the Victorian hierarchy. The British social circle and it’s power hungry members would definitely disagree to the marriage of William Jones and a lowly maid Emma. A sweet love story of a socially unacceptable couple that has been retold again and again through books and novels. This is set in Victorian Britain, manga style! Also coming up (but I haven’t had time to write them up yet):
Here are some useful links to the online manga readers and such like! If you know any more good websites, can you e-mail me? You’ll find the address on the Links page.
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