Manga outside Japan
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Manga, or Japanese comics, have been translated into many different languages in different countries including Brazil, Korea, mainland China, Taiwan, France, Germany, Mexico, Italy, and many more. In the United States, manga is a small but growing industry, especially when compared to the inroads that Japanese animation has made in the USA. An example of a manga publisher in the United States is VIZ Media, the American affiliate of publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha. They have many popular titles such as Dragon Ball, One Piece, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Rurouni Kenshin, Naruto, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Fullmetal Alchemist,Bleach and the various works of Rumiko Takahashi. The UK has fewer manga publishers than the U.S.
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[edit] Flipping
Since Japanese is usually written from right to left in works of fiction, manga is drawn and published this way in Japan. When various titles were first translated to other languages, the artwork and layouts were flipped and reversed in a process known as "flopping", so that the book could be read from left-to-right. However, various creators (such as Akira Toriyama) did not approve of their work being modified this way, and requested that foreign versions retain the right-to-left format of the originals. Soon, due to both fan demand and the requests of creators, more publishers began offering the option of right-to-left formatting, which has now become commonplace in North America. Left-to-right formatting has gone from the rule to the exception.
Translated manga often includes cultural notes for details of Japanese culture that may not be familiar to foreign audiences.
Another company, TOKYOPOP, is producing manga widely in the United States, with the right-to-left format as a highly publicized point. They are widely credited with starting the current boom in manga sales, particularly amongst teenage girls. Some critics have complained that their aggressive publishing schedule emphasizes quantity over quality, and might be responsible for translations which many feel to be of sub-optimal quality. Many also frown upon the company for their frequent localization changes, including additions such as American slang, excessive swearing that is not to be found in the Japanese originals of the same titles, and joke rewrites, among others. The critics tend to admit that their contributions to the success of manga in America have been considerable.
[edit] France
[edit] "French exception"
France is noted for having a particularly strong and diverse manga market. In the 1990s, France became the second country, after Japan, reading manga worldwide. Many works that are published in France fall into genres that aren't well represented outside of Japan, such as adult oriented drama, or experimental and avant-garde works. Early editors like Tonkam have published Hong-Kong authors (Andy Seto, Yu & Lau) or Korean authors (Kim Jae Hwan, Soo & Il, Wan & Weol and Hyun Se Lee) in their manga collection during 1995/1996 which is quite uncommon. Also, some Japanese authors, such as Jiro Taniguchi, are relatively unknown in other western countries but received much acclaim in France. A cultural reason for the sheer popularity and diversity of manga in this country is due to it having a well established and respected comics market of its own. Other reasons are socio-historical, an exceptionally reduced number of TV channels in the 1970s and 1980s explains the powerful impact the Japanese animation had on the audience, since there was not much choice Japanese animation quickly became mainstream. Since its introduction in the 1990s, manga publishing and anime broadcasting are intertwined in France, where the most popular and exploited shōnen, shōjo and seinen TV series were imported in their paper version. Therefore Japanese comics were naturally and early accepted by a large juvenile public who was already familiar with the series and received the manga as part of their own culture. A strong parallel backup was the emergence of Japanese video games, Nintendo/Sega, which were mostly based on manga and anime series.
[edit] Nippon Animation era (1978~1986)
One of the major reason for the manga success in France is its corollary, the Japanese animation, was prior introduced in the country on public channels, in the late 1970s, early '80s. Unlike other European countries, by this time there were only three French TV channels, both were public and had minor children TV shows. Shōnen and Shōjo series like UFO Robot Grendizer, Captain Future, Candy Candy and Captain Harlock are iconical of this era. Quickly, producer Jean Chalopin contacted some Japanese studios, such as Toei ¹, who did Grendizer, and French-Japanese series were created by Tokyo Movie Shinsha, Studio Pierrot or Studio Junio. Even though it was totally made in Japan by character designers such as Shingo Araki, the first show was thematically inspired by the Greek Odysseus and graphically influenced by Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ulysses 31 was released in 1981, other shows produced by DiC Entertainment followed in 1982, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Mysterious Cities of Gold, later M.A.S.K., etc. Such series were enough popular to allow the introduction of licensed products such as tee shirts, toys, stickers, mustard glass, mugs or keshi. Also followed a wave of anime adaptations of European tales by Studio Pierrot and mostly by the Nippon Animation studio, e.g. Johanna Spyri's Heidi (1974), Waldemar Bonsels's Maya the Bee (1975), Hector Malot's Sans Famille (1977), Cécile Aubry's Belle and Sebastian (1980), Selma Lagerlöf's The Wonderful Adventures of Nils (1980), or Jules Verne's Around the World with Willy Fog (1983), notable adaptation of American works were Mark Twain's Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1980) and Alexander Key's Future Boy Conan. Interesting cases are Alexandre Dumas, père's The Three Musketeers adapted to Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds (1981) and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes become Sherlock Hound (1984), both turned human characters into anthropomorph animals. A such anthropomophism in tales comes from an old and common storytelling tradition in both Japanese and French cultures through Toba Sōjō's (1053-1140) Chōjū giga emaki, the true origins of manga, and Jean de La Fontaine's (1621-1695) beast fables. Changing humans to anthropomorph dogs is also a known form of Cynicism, the antic European philosophy shared in many modern countries, since etymologically speaking, the Cynic's mordant comes from the fact he is a dog ("cyno" means dog in Greek). These popular tales adaptations made easier the acceptance and assimiliation of semi-Japanese cultural products in countries such as France, Italy or Spain. The localization including credits removal by Saban or DiC, was such that even today, twenty or thirty years later, most of French adults who have watched series like Calimero (1974) adapted from an Italian novel, Wanpaku Omukashi Kum Kum (1975), Barbapapa (1977) adapted from a French novel, or Monchichi (1980) as kids don't even know they were not local animation but "Japananimation" created in Japan, South Korea, China or North Korea.
[edit] Toei era (1987~1996)
Between 1986 and 1987, three new channels were created, both were private. An aggressive struggle for audience, especially on children TV shows, started between the two public and the two private channels. Later the losing market private channels counter attack with a non-Japanese lineup, mostly American productions such as Hanna-Barbera. This tentative failed, and TF1 kept leader of the children TV shows with its Japanese licenses. In 1991, the first anime feature film was released in French theaters, Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, a teen rated, SF movie supported by manga publisher Glénat but poorly distributed and a limited success. Not surprisingly, the video (VHS) version was edited in the French market by TF1 Video, then quickly Akira became an anime reference. However, Japanese animation genre became massively exploited by TV shows since the late '80s, most notably the, cult, Club Dorothée show mostly dedicated to Toei anime and sentai series. In fact, the commercial relationship between the Japanese studio and the French show producers were so good, that the French presenter was even featured in a Metal Heroes trilogy episode as guest star. Just like in a Japanese manga series magazine, the Club Dorothée spectators voted by phone or minitel to select and rank their favourite series. Top rank series were continued the following week, others stopped, then a hundred of series aired the show. The importation of this Japanese exploitation method was never seen in France, and never had since. The most popular series were Dragon Ball and later its sequel, Dragon Ball Z, who became number one, and was nicknamed "le chouchou" (the pet") by the show presenter, Dorothée. As the series kept number one for several months, Dorothée invited Akira Toriyama (Toei Animation), creator of the series, on the TV show studio to introduce him to the French audience and award him a prize in the name of the TV show. The second popular anime series was probably Saint Seiya, both of them were seinen, i.e. more violent and destined to an older audience than the '70/80s Nippon Animation studio shōnen/shōjo series. Notable Toei and non-Toei anime series broadcasted by that time on French TV were Captain Tsubasa, Robotech, High School! Kimengumi and Kinnikuman. This 1987-1997 running cult TV show had unpredicted effects and a deep influence in the French culture. Not only it created a generation of Japanophile, but it did set a strong base for a durable and massive exploitation of manga publishing and anime video (DVD) in the following decade. The reason is most of broadcasted anime series were adaptations of existing manga, and that the grown up children would be later able to buy manga and DVD boxsets (TF1 Video and others) of their favourite childhood series.
[edit] Generation conflict around manga (1990~1995)
The first manga issue in France is Akira, published in 1990 by Glénat and supported by respected newspaper Libération and national radio Antenne 2. Followers are Dragon Ball (1993), Appleseed (1994), Ranma 1/2 (1994) and five others. In the mid-1990s, both anime and manga became a social phenomenon in France, with different series magazine in B5 size like Kameha (Glénat) and later Manga Player (MSE). However, in the same time a controversy raised among some parents, particularly the conservative association Familles de France started a mediatized polemical about unadequate contents -such as violence- portrayed in the Club Dorothée, a kids TV show. By this time, a generation conflict opposed the young "Japanimation" contraction of "Japanese" & "animation", in use until anime became mainstream) fans versus the older Japoniaiseries (a pejorative pun for "Japonaiseries", lit. "Japanese stuff" and "niaiseries", "simpleton stuff") opponents. Segolene Royal even published a book "le Ras le bol des bébés zappeurs" in which Manga are described as decadent dangerous and violent. She hasn't changed her position on that topic yet. The same adult content controversy was applied to hentai manga, including the notorious, "forbidden", Shin Angel by U-Jin, published by pioneers such as Samourai Editions or Katsumi Editions and later to magazines. The first hentai series magazine, "Yoko", featured softcore series like Yuuki's Tropical Eyes. It was first issued in late 1995. The same year, the noir and ultra-violent series, Gunnm (aka Battle Angel Alita), was serialized in a slim, monthly, edition. Around the same period a hardcore version of Yoko magazine was issued Okaz.
[edit] Anime clearance & manga emergence (1996~1998)
Actually the controversed TV series, e.g., Hokuto no ken, Saint Seiya or City Hunter were broadcasted in Japan, later at night, for a teen to adult audience. These edited series were finally discontinued in France, and the Club Dorothée, broadcasted on private channel TF1, started to replace Japanese contents with European or American animation series, getting closer to public channel rival TV shows, and with French sitcoms. Even though, the French-Begian animation studios got rid of a serious concurrence, the show lost its phenomenal audience and stopped in 1997. The mistake done by the Club Dorothée producers had to do with a cultural view, in France, animation was seen as a genre in its own, a product dedicated to children not adult. An animation feature was not considered the same as a live-action film, which is totally different in Japan. Series were massively licensed to Toei without consideration of age ratings. In 1996, a cable/satellite channel dedicated to manga and anime was created by the production group of Club Dorothée. The new channel was renamed Mangas in 1998, as anime and manga are intertwined in the country, and manga actually became the mainstream generic term to designate the two things. The channel broadcasts former discontinued series from the Club Dorothée, to both nostalgic adults and new kid generations
[edit] Cultural integration & revival (1999~2005)
In the '00s, anime feature films, and by extension manga, are regarded with more respect than before, in late 1999, Hiroyuki Okiura's Jin-Roh was critically acclaimed including by respected newspapers such as Le Monde, and in 2000, Hayao Miyazaki's Princess Mononoke became a commercial success, probably the biggest for an anime feature. In 2004, Mamoru Oshii's Innocence: Ghost in the Shell 2 became the first animation to get finalist in the prestigious International Film Festival of Cannes, which demonstrates a radical perspective change and a social acceptance of the Japanese anime/manga. Since 2005, recent Japanese series such as Naruto, Initial D, Great Teacher Onizuka, Blue Gender or Gunslinger Girl were introduced on new, analog/digital terrestrial, public and, satellite/broadband, private channels. As the highly aggressive competition who raged once between, the sole two or three available channels no more exists in the new, vast, and segmented French TV offer, the anime is doing a revival in France.
[edit] Manga made in France
A significant fact is the manga publishing exploitation's explosion, circa 1996, coincided with the lost of audience of the Club Dorothée show eventually leading to its discontinuation. Some early publishers like Glénat, adapted manga using the Western reading direction and its induced work of mirroring each panel and graphical signs, and also using a quality paper standard to the Franco-Belgian comics , while others, like J'ai Lu, were faithful to the original manga culture and not only kept the original, inverted, Japanese direction reading but also used a newspaper standard, cheap quality, paper just like in Japan. The Japanese manga was such an important cultural phenomenon that it quickly influenced French comics authors. A new "French manga" genre emerged, known as "La nouvelle manga" ("lit. the new manga") in reference to the French Nouvelle Vague.
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For more details on this topic, see La nouvelle manga.
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For more details on this topic, see Franco-Belgian comics.
[edit] Germany
Although the German comic market is rather small and usually reacts slowly in comparison to other European countries, manga created a new boom. After an unimpressive start with Akira in 1991 and a few other series like Appleseed in the following years, the "manga movement" picked up speed with the publication of Dragon Ball, the first un-flipped German manga, in late 1996. Today, manga account for approximately 70–75% of all comics published in Germany, with female readers outnumbering male manga fans.
The first manga magazine, Manga Power by Feest Comics, was launched in 1996. The first issue featured Ranma 1/2, Hellhounds Panzer Cops (based on the American edition of Kerberos Panzer Cops), and AD Police.
[edit] Brazil
Previous to the 90s, there was few attempts including Mai - The extra sensitive girl, Akira (which was cancelled) and Lone wolf and cub.
The Brazilian comic market started in the mid-90s with Ranma 1/2, although the publication wasn't successful. It was followed by the Pokémon manga being released by Conrad in the late 90s, during the Pokémon boom.
In 2002, Conrad published Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball Z (both titles were well known, since the anime were highly successful in the 90s). After the success of these titles, Conrad released not only trendy manga like One Piece, Vagabond, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Slam Dunk, but also classic manga like Osamu Tezuka titles (including Adolf and Buddha), Nausicaä, and less known titles like Bambi and Sade.
In 2003, the Japanese-Brazilian company Japan Brazil Communication (JBC) started publishing manga with the release of Rurouni Kenshin, Rayearth and Sakura Card Captors. Nowadays, JBC publishes Clamp titles and popular titles like Negima!, Fruits Basket, Death Note, Fullmetal Alchemist, Yu-Gi-Oh, Love Hina and Video Girl Ai.
In 2004, Panini started publishing manga, with the release of Peach Girl and Eden. The editor was criticized because of bad translation and for releasing flipped titles, but since then started publishing in the original way. Panini currently publishes the most popular manga in Brazil, Naruto.
Originally, manga were released with about half the size of a tankoubon (about 100 pages of stories and two to eight pages of extras), but most manga nowadays are released in the original format, with the exception of the ones published by JBC.
Shōjo manga fans criticized publishing houses for ignoring shōjo manga; the only shōjo manga available until 2006 were Peach Girl, CLAMP titles, Fruits Basket, Angel Sanctuary and Fushigi Yuugi. However, in 2006 several of shōjo manga series were started: MeruPuri, Kare Kano, Gravitation, Bijinzaka and Zettai Kareshi are currently being published with titles like Vampire Knight, Paradise Kiss, Nana, Princess Princess, among others already licensed.
[edit] Singapore
The company Chuang Yi publishes manga in English and Chinese in Singapore; some of Chuang Yi's English-language titles are also imported to Australia and New Zealand.
[edit] Oceania
In Australia and New Zealand, many popular Japanese and Chinese language manga and anime are distributed by Madman Entertainment.
[edit] Indonesia
Manga has become one of fastest growing consumer industries, and Indonesia is now one of the biggest manga markets outside of Japan. Manga in Indonesia is published by Elex Media Komputindo, Acolyte, Level Comic, M&C and Gramedia, and has greatly influenced Indonesia's original comic industry.
The wide distribution of scanlations actually contributes the rising of publication of bootleg manga, which is printed in lower quality. One of the most notable publisher is Seventh Heaven which publishes bootleg version of One Piece. Many popular titles such as Bleach, Loki, Magister Nagi, Rose Hip Zero, Kingdom Hearts have been pirated, which draws controversy toward manga readers in Indonesia.
Some support the piracy because the local publishers do not publish the demanded popular titles, but legal manga supporters argue that the bootleg releases risk the local publisher to publish the manga because the original Japanese licensor will see this as negative stance of manga market in Indonesia. Most of the bootlegs are also sold with same price, even higher than the legal version.
[edit] South Korea
[edit] Thailand
In Thailand, before 1992, almost all available manga were fast, unlicensed, poor quality bootlegs. However, due to copyright laws, this has changed and nearly all published manga are copyright-protected. Thailand's prominent manga publishers include Nation Edutainment, Siam Inter Comics, Vibulkij, and Bongkoch.
Many parents in Thai society are not supportive of manga. In October 2005, there was a television programme broadcasted about the dark side of manga with exaggerated details, resulted in many manga being banned. The programme received many complaints and issued an apology to the audience.
[edit] United States
The growth of manga translation and publishing in the United States has been a slow progression over several decades. The earliest manga-derived series to be released in the United States was a redrawn American adaptation of Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy published by Gold Key Comics starting in 1965. The first manga to be published in the US with its original artwork intact was a ten-page story by Shinobu Kaze, "Violence Becomes Tranquility", which appeared in the March 1980 issue of Heavy Metal.[1] In December 1982 the San Francisco-based publisher Educomics released a colorized and translated version of Keiji Nakazawa's I Saw It. Four translated volumes of Nakazawa's major work Barefoot Gen were also published in the early 1980s by New Society Publishers.[1] Short works by several Garo-affiliated artists including Yoshiharu Tsuge and Terry Yumura appeared in May 1985 in RAW's no. 7 "Tokyo Raw" special.
In 1987 Viz Comics, an American subsidiary of the Japanese publishers Shogakukan and Shueisha, began publishing translations of three manga series - Area 88, Mai the Psychic Girl, and The Legend of Kamui - in the U.S. in association with the American publisher Eclipse Comics. Viz went on to bring English translations of popular series such as Ranma ½ and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Some other American publishers released notable translations of Japanese comics in this period, such as First Comics' serialization of Lone Wolf and Cub which started in May 1987. However, the first manga to make a strong impression on American audiences was Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira, which was brought to the United States in colorized form in 1988 by Epic Comics, a division of Marvel.[2]
Throughout the 90s, manga slowly gained popularity as more was released for the US Market. Viz Media, Dark Horse and Mixx (now Tokyopop) were all significant contributors to the growing pool of translated manga. Both Mixx and Viz published manga anthologies: MixxZine (1997 - 1999) ran serialized manga such as Sailor Moon, Magic Knight Rayearth and Ice Blade, while Viz's Animerica Extra (1998 - 2004) featured series including Fushigi Yugi, Banana Fish and Utena: Revolutionary Girl. In 2002 Viz began publishing a monthly American edition of the famous Japanese "phone book"-style manga anthology Shonen Jump featuring some of the most popular manga titles from Japan, including Naruto, One Piece, and Dragon Ball Z. Its circulation far surpassed that of previous American manga anthologies, reaching 180,000 in 2005.[3] Also in 2005, Viz launched Shojo Beat, a successful counterpart to Shonen Jump aimed at female readers.
In 2002, Tokyopop introduced it's "100% Authentic Manga" line, which featured unflipped pages and were smaller in size than most other translated graphic novels. This allowed them be retailed at a price lower than that of comparable publications by Viz and others. The line was also made widely available in mainstream bookstores such as Borders and Barnes & Noble, which greatly increased manga's visibility among the book-buying public.[4] After Tokyopop's success, most of the other manga companies switched to the smaller unflipped format and offered their titles at similar prices.
Today there are a large number of small companies publishing manga in the United States. Several large publishers have also released, or expressed interest in releasing manga. Del Rey translated and published several Japanese series including xxxHolic, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and, Negima!: Magister Negi Magi, while Harlequin has brought its Ginger Blossom line of manga, originally released only in Japan, to the United States as well.
[edit] Other distribution methods
Another popular form of manga distribution outside of Japan is through the Internet scanlations, (or scanslations). Typically, a small group of people scan the original version of a series with no current license in the language which they wish to translate it to, translate it, and freely distribute it; usually through the use of IRC or BitTorrent. Most scanlation groups request that downloaders cease distribution and purchase official copies in the event that their projects become licensed, though it is a common concern that readers will continue to use these unauthorized copies. Many readers prefer scanlations due to the frequent changes found in official translations, though scanlations are more likely to have some unintentional mistakes due to the varying degrees of skill employed by the unpaid translators. Some scanlators do make edits, though it is rare, especially compared to the official manga translation industry.
This also happens the other way round as well for example Megatokyo was originally and still is a webcomic, scanning and publishing it online but was then made into books at a later stage when it became more popular.
[edit] Manga influences
Manga has proved so popular that it has led to other companies such as Antarctic Press, Oni Press, Seven Seas Entertainment, TOKYOPOP and even Archie Comics to release their own manga-inspired works that apply the same artist stylings and story pacing commonly seen in Japanese manga. One of the first of these such works came in 1985 when Ben Dunn, founder of Antarctic Press, released Mangazine and Ninja High School.
While Antarctic Press actively refers to its works as "American Manga", not all of these manga-inspired works are made by Americans. Many of the artists working on Seven Seas Entertainment series such as Last Hope and Amazing Agent Luna are Filipino and TOKYOPOP has hired a variety of Korean and Japanese artists to work on titles such as Warcraft and Princess Ai. Many of these works have been classified on the Internet with titles such as OEL Manga, MIC, and World Manga, though, none of these terms have actually been used by manga companies to describe these works on the books themselves.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ Frederik Schodt, Manga! Manga! The World of Japanese Comics (New York: Kodansha International, 1983), 154, 158.
- ^ akira2019.com (2005). Marvel/Epic Comics: Akira Coloured Comic Book. akira2019.com. Retrieved on 29 May 2007.
- ^ Viz Media LLC (2005). Viz Media Announces Anniversarry Edition of Shonen Jump. Anime News Network. Retrieved on 29 May 2007.
- ^ Tokyopop (2002). Tokyopop manga Sells Out. Anime News Network. Retrieved on 29 May 2007.
