Manga Comes!

Matthew Mehan writes this profile of Japanese Comic Books for MercatorNet, a Catholic "evangelization of media" site out of Australia.

A taste:

Comic books may be an American invention, but Japanese comic book culture has taken things to a whole new level. Manga, Japanese for “comics”, is an international growth market and a cultural phenomenon both in Japan and abroad. In Japan, not to mention South Korea and Taiwan, manga is a huge, US$4.7 billion industry with local manga rental stores set up like video rental stores. In the US, manga is showing double digit growth each year, and comic book shops are expanding the manga sections to keep up with demand from both boys and girls. In fact, you may be familiar with a few manga titles that have gone to the silver and plasma screens: Yu-Gi-Oh!, Neon Genesis: Evangelion, Cowboy Beebop, the cult classic anime movie Akira, the saccharin Sailor Moon television series, the disturbing Ghost in the Shell, and Pokemon: the Movie, cartoon, and the card game. But these comic books turned movie only scratch the surface of manga culture.

The Tokyo comic book market is very different from the US market: Comic book series launches, ad campaigns to hype the new hero, spin-off character-based comics playing off flagships like Superman and X-men are the norm in the US, but not in Japan. Instead of a major launch, complete with ad campaign, comics in Japan appear in remarkably cheap (US$2) and remarkably thick (upwards of 600 pages) paperback magazine comic compendiums sold monthly or weekly out of news stands and supermarkets. Ironic, really, that Japanese comic books never begin as a comic book. Almost all Japanese comics lack the collectors’ Holy Grail: the mint condition first issue. Rather they suddenly appear in one of these trade paperback comic compendiums, and if people like it, that comic gets a second episode. And so on and so on, until there is a demand for a stand-alone, full-colour, old-fashioned comic book series, followed by the extended graphic novel, the cartoon miniseries, the cartoon show, the movie, the T-shirt, the backpack, the lunch box, and, finally, the pyjama pattern.

I'm not Manga myself. However, at one time I prided myself as a comic-book collect-and-devour fiend! I find the re-creation of one of the US' original art-forms by Japan fascinating. I'm not alone, either.

Which brings me to the point: Mr. Mehan provides a brisk and entertaining look at a pop-culture phenomena. If we're truly interested in evangelizing our societies, we'd better know the lay of the land. Mr. Mehan serves all Fools well as a scout. Take his service seriously.