Japanese Manga

Japanese manga has become a major influence in today’s comic book culture. The reasons leave some old prudes puzzled, but there is something about the stories and variety that interest a range of people.  Japanese manga has such a ridiculous amount of variety, that to try and create a overlying genre, is just too boorish. If you can think of  a lawyer that secretly wants to become the world’s greatest chef, there is a book for that, if you want something silly like a world where you can basically eat everything and that there are super powered people that capture unique foods, you got a story. If you want a story of a pirate looking for the most envied treasure in the world and there are fruit that can give you super powers you have that. Or f you simply want a slice of life of a group of girls trying to make it through high school you have that. The point is, is that Japan is open to variety, and it brings in viewers because it isn’t just the same old stories we’ve heard hear in the west. There is also a willingness to allow fans to join in on the fun, with some artists’ style’s being easy to mimic. So fan art can be put out into the public eye and basically its free advertisement for your work. The overall culture of it being beyond the manga and anime, to it being about cosplay and online forums, brings a closer nit group of people who enjoy the culture of it. Even though in the west we have this with our comic book conventions, you see more Japanese characters cosplayed than American.

And I think that’s because, were so used to our superheroes, that who really wants to be one of them. They don’t really seem to go on adventures, they are serious most of the time, to us they become farther from a normal person. Where even in anime a simple high school student, teacher, dog, cook, lawyer, anyone could become the hero in their own world. That is what attracts readers and viewers is no matter how out there and weird the characters can get there is something that is still more grounded than in some western comics.