Forum - View topicFor all those who say manga is for Japan only
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shadow_kunoichi7
Posts: 5 |
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Alright. So I was looking through here and I came across a thread that said that if you are not Japanese, you are not and cannot be a mangaka. Also, you can't call your art manga unless it's Japanese. Okay. First off, you are so wrong and are contradicting soooo many things in history that are art related. I mean come on! Where did we get the idea of building things in pyramid shape?! Egypt! So basically, with your idea, you're saying we can't build any pyramids unless we're Egyptian? Only Egyptians can build pyramids? And how about sculptures from ancient Rome and Greece? Why don't you go around the world and destroy any sculpture that isn't in Greece or Italy. Don't get me started on non art related things that we've taken from other cultures such as food, music, language(English is Germanic), etc. People! Stop being so hypocritical! As long as the story is good and the art follows the basic rules of manga, with a bit of originality(for instance Death Note characters and InuYasha characters look different, but are still called anime/manga) it's manga! Newsflash, if you know so much about stuff being Japanese, you would know that manga is the Japanese word for COMIC, not Japanese people only comics, =.= though it is associated with the Japanese because it originated there. Anyone in this world can draw a COMIC in any style they want. If they like manga, they can draw manga. Now, I will admit that a lot of the American comics arent as good as the Japanese ones, but hey practice makes perfect. There are a lot more manga artists in Japan, not to mention they've been there longer, and they get ALOT of advice that many of us don't have access too. But, yeah, I'm done with my rant. By now you all probably know what my point is, but i'll say it again. Stop being a hypocrite by saying only the Japanese can draw manga. Anyone who wants to draw it can. Let cultural diffusion and diversion run free. Enough said. But hey, I wanna hear what you think about what I say. Who agrees and who disagrees. The best arguments aren't one sided.
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Pityless/Envy
 Posts: 101 |
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While it's true that mangaka can be non-Japanese, most fans are elitists and don't accept it as real manga.
About your examples for pyramids and sculptures and the like, people just seem to accept some thing and reject others, that's the way it is. Your logic is on the right track though, is pizza made in North America not considered pizza just because it was originally made in Italy? But I'm sure if you drew a comic and bound it backwards (by our standards) most North Americans would consider it manga and not care about the author. |
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shadow_kunoichi7
Posts: 5 |
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thanks, you yourself do bring out some points. You reminded me about one of the things I don't like in American manga. I'd much prefer the manga to read the way Japanese mangas are read, right to left. I dunno if it's just me, but It's weird reading manga left to right. Anything else, is fine that way, but not manga. I guess a lot of the negative emotion toward American manga is that many of the "best sellers" or anything labeled TokyoPop doesn't immitate, rather model after, correctly. To some, it's like trying to build a car, but you can't quite make that car look or sound like a real car, but you still label it a car. So, for that, I agree to a certain extent. But I still maintain my point that manga is not just for Japan. Great talent can come from anywhere in the world. There are awesome stories out there, and they'll show when you least expect it. |
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marie-antoinette
 Posts: 4136 Location: Ottawa, Canada |
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Just for the record, the Egyptians did not invent pyramids. Pyramids were also built in Central American/Mexico, without any contact between the two cultures (obviously). A pyramid is a geometric shape. The same goes for statues (that they were not invented by the Greeks or the Romans and are shared across many cultures).
While I agree with your overall point, your way of proving it leaves much to be desired. Last edited by marie-antoinette on Sat Feb 02, 2008 5:38 am; edited 1 time in total |
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@
 Posts: 3498 Location: IN your nightmares |
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I agree that the presentation of the OP was a little hostile. It could have been worded without singling out a particular group that you disagreed with since it came off more like the entire forum membership in general opposes your viewpoint.
Nevertheless my thoughts on the topic are that integral design elements of artwork are very closely tied to each culture that interprets the world around it. Therefore when we associate comics from Japan with a particular style and look, that is an orignal creation that cannot be duplicated anywhere else in the world and still be called original. So when an American artist draws with a manga style, they are only adapting a style that originated elsewhere. They are not drawing from their own cultural interpretation of what the world looks like. A Japanese person who reads American comic books typically sees a certain style that is characteristic of American cultural influences on design. If that person is an artist they can try to emulate or copy it but they will never acheive the sort of cultural experiences necessary for their own style to look American. |
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fighterholic
Posts: 9193 |
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I'm wondering what thread you got your information from but okay...
So let's get down to manga then. First off I can try to take your point about the situation but I think you went off on it a little too harshly, like others have said. The thing is that the definition to what can be labeled I think draws down to the fact that it is produced IN Japan, therefore it has the right to be called "manga." I for one have never said that you have to be Japanese to be a manga contributor/artist. I have seen some manga series that have actually had non-Japanese people involved with their production. |
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bahamut623
 Posts: 1463 |
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I don't wanna sound mean or anything, but you're wrong. The problem I, and probably others, have is the usage of the word "manga". Yes manga does mean comics in Japanese, but here it takes a slightly different meaning (you have to take the context the word is used in into consideration)-when we say "manga" in English, it just classifies "manga" as comics from Japan. You can make a comic or a cartoon in the style of anime/manga and that's just fine, but it's NOT anime or manga just because it's similar. Even if you make something in the style of manga, it's really just a manga influenced comic. Calling it "manga" just gives the impression "I don't think comics are cool enough, so I'll call it manga because that's what I like better!" If you make a painting in the style of Picasso and you go around saying you made a Picasso...people are just gonna give you odd looks.
Yes, there is great talent out there, but "manga" isn't the only type of "sequential art" there is (didn't wanna use that phrase but...lol). A good story can be told in comic form without being manga. |
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Patachu
Past ANN Contributor
 Posts: 1325 Location: San Diego |
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That's so funny, you know, because there's a thread in the subscription section, where people are like discussing the definition of "Japanese food," as in how authentically Japanese must a Japanese food be before you can call it a Japanese food, and it's so funny, because everytime I look at that thread I just wonder "if they changed the words 'Japanese food' to 'Japanese cartoons and comics' they'd be singing a totally different tune," and you'd be like Well obviously, because that's apples and oranges and regional cuisine is not the same as regional visual arts, but it's like are they really that different after all because cuisine is simply a form of creative endeavor geared towards the sense of taste whereas comics is a form of creative endeavor geared towards the sense of sight, and they are both forms of expressing one's self, so how come you have to draw different cultural boundaries for one artform and a totally different set of cultural boundaries for another, I mean like how would you define "Japanese furniture" or a "Japanese car" or a "Japanese porn star" if you're going to be that much of a hard-ass about it, and ultimately some dickhole is going to come waltzing in and say "why even use the word manga, it's all just COMICS derderderrrr" and I'll be like "then why is it called Japanese food when it's just FOOD" and what's the point of serving sushi at a Japanese restaurant because you can serve it at any old restaurant like a faulkin' McDonald's for crap's sake because "OH, THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS MANGA, IT'S ALL JUST COMICS," so obviously "THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS JAPANESE FOOD, IT'S ALL JUST FOOD," and there are no such things as Japanese porn stars or Japanese cars or Japanese furniture because apparently no one likes foreign five-letter words that make everyone sound like nerds.
In conclusion, don't start threads like these, because the people on this site hate them, and they all inevitably turn out stupid. "But you know what the funniest thing about Japan is?" "What?" "It's the little differences. I mean they got the same shit over there that they got here, but it's just - it's just there it's a little different." "Examples?" "Alright, well you can walk up to a vending machine and buy a beer. And, like, women's underwear. From a vending machine. And you know what they call shoujo manga in Japan?" "They don't call it shoujo manga?" "Nah, man, they speak Japanese, they don't need no froo-froo Japanese words to talk about Japanese comics in Japan." "What do they call it?" "They call it girls' comics." "Girls' comics." "That's right." "What do they call shounen?" "Shounen is shounen, but it means boys' comics." "Boys' comics. What do they call hentai?" "I dunno, I didn't go in that section. But, you know what they do with all the manga in the bookstore?" "What." "They shrinkwrap 'em. All of 'em." "God damn!" Last edited by Patachu on Sat Feb 02, 2008 4:09 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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KyuuA4
 Posts: 1371 Location: America, where anime and manga can be made |
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Just to let you know -- there exists a German mangaka -- in Germany -- producing German manga. Yes, in Germany, they call homebrewed manga as manga. The German language lacks the kind of ambiguity that English does. If you don't believe me, use Google.
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shadow_kunoichi7
Posts: 5 |
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I stand by what I said about the English being a Germanic language. It is in fact one. English is mostly derived from German. If you look at a lot of simple English words and German words such as house you'll see what I mean. Plus English is defined as one. The reason English sounds so different is that we've also gotten words from Latin roots as well. But that's off the subject. I have, though, looked back at my original post and I've that maybe it was hostile. Okay it was. <.<; I apologize. But I've talked to people who loved drawing manga, have drawn it all their lives(and well, might I add), have stories that aren't rip-offs of others, and had alwayz dreamed of having their worked published. Then they hear these opinions about only Japanese can draw them and so on. Also the only reason you haven't seen many good American ones is that many of the good ones still don't know how to get their work published. Either that or they see the rep of Tokyo falsly labeling items. Japan has publishing offices everyone knows about, and becuz of that, they get so many entries, and they throw out all that suck. Tokyo Rising Stars...kinda limited there, though they get many entries, good, i dunno. But b4 all the words about American manga sux, consider what each side has available. We may have many mangas available, but there could be something else said about manga publishing and the knowledge about them. |
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Moomintroll
 Posts: 1600 Location: Nottingham (UK) |
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No it isn't. Anglo-Saxon and German share a common root from which they are both derived (a root which is ultimately closer to Bombay than it is to Berlin...). It is certainly primarily a Germanic language but that is not the same thing as being "derived from German" - you may as well say that Spanish is derived from Italian (whereas, in actual fact, they are both derived from Latin) or that Finnish is derived from Hungarian (whereas, in actual fact, they are both derived from the same Asiatic steppe language). There are a number of modern European languages that are closer to modern English than German is (Danish for example) and modern Icelandic is much closer to Old English than modern German is. --- With regards to your initial post - yes, you can build a pyramid in Texas without being Egyptian and if you call it an "Egyptian-style pyramid", that shouldn't raise any eyebrows. But if you build a pyramid in Texas and declare it to be an actual "Egyptian pyramid" people will be somewhat sceptical. "Manga" is, indeed, a Japanese word for comics of all varieties and from any country. But in English usage it is generally used to mean "Japanese comic". Used in the broader (original Japanese) sense, it is a redundant word when used in a non-Japanese context since we already have the words "comic" and "graphic novel" and its use becomes more pretentious than helpful. Also, I'm a bit confused by:
You appear to be suffering from the twin delusions that (a) all Japanese manga is "good" and (b) there are stylistic rules followed by all Japanese manga. Neither is true. To refute the first fallacy, I have one word for you and that word is Eiken. To refute the second fallacy, please explain to me how the works of Junko Mizuno, Hiroaki Samura, Tori Miki and Ken Akamatsu are in any way related other than by virtue of being Japanese comics. Not all manga looks like the stuff in Shonen Jump. |
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HMMcKamikaze
 Posts: 189 |
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I think the problem here is that many people have a bias towards manga as opposed to American comics, or comics from any other country. I know I do at least. From the start something labeled manga will be received differently from something without that label. It is because (as far as I know) there are certain preconceptions that is "better", or there is something marks it apart from other comics. It's hard to pin down what exactly creates such ideas as I know plenty of horrible manga that don't deserve a second's glance, and even the popular manga have different art styles, subject matters, storytelling techniques, and influences. So the question is, is there something underneath that all manga share? Maybe it's culture, but even that argument is a little tenuous.
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nhat
Posts: 922 |
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Eh since you live in the US, we have a word for manga, it is call comics. Just call it that. Even if your story and art style is similar to Japanese authors.
Just like how Japanese food isn't called "Nippon" food, we call it Japanese food because that is the american way of saying it. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16983 |
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That has to be without a doubt the longest run-on sentence I have ever seen in my life.  I am in awe heh.
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Monsieur Pink
Posts: 141 |
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And my question is; how can something so trivial creates so much debates within the fan community? Even the fansub argument makes more sense than this. There is abuse in word borrowing within the fandom anyway.
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