Legal Insider Bot

The Difference Between Japanese Manga and Western Manga

Some manga produced in Japan is published weekly as part of huge 300-page anthologies of comic stories. Just like many people read newspapers on trains on the way to work, Japanese commuters read these anthologies. They're considered to be cheap entertainment, so they're read and thrown away. While American comic books (like the Action Comics issue I mentioned earlier) are saved and stored away by people hoping they'll be worth a lot more someday, there's no "collector" interest in manga in Japan. Saving one of the 300 page anthologies would be like saving yesterday's newspaper - no one does it.
The anthologies are incredibly popular, and manga artists have crazy schedules, many having to pump out sixteen or twenty pages per week to keep up. Being an average manga artist is probably really fun, but it's also very demanding.
If you've ever picked up a manga graphic novel, you've noticed something else: the book seems backwards. Why? Most Asian books are read from left to right. Our last page is their first page. (The cover seems like it's on backwards, too.) Reading a real Japanese graphic novel, even if it's been translated, can seem a little weird at first, since every time you turn the page it feels like you're going backwards.
Many U.S. writers and illustrators now produce manga. A lot of people call their work "American manga" or "Western manga," since it's not produced in Japan by Japanese writers and artists. (Purists generally do not call non-Japanese comics "manga," even if they're drawn in an appropriate style.)
If you are a true Anime fan, then you will definitely want to check out Kane Alexander's blog Guide To Anime.

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