The Forbidden Planet International Blog Log

You quite often hear people say they “don’t like” or they “don’t get” manga. Then they go on to tell you the names of the manga they love. What’s happening is that they are using the word ‘manga’ as a metaphor for all Japanese comics and books, except the Japanese comics and books they do like (bit like the critics who write that they love Galactica but declare it isn’t SF because they hate SF – Joe). That’s why the statement “I don’t like manga” is usually swiftly followed by “but I love Lone Wolf and Cub “, or “I love Monster” or “I just love Drifting Classroom”.

If you think about it, it’s a little like you once read TV21 and liked that, and then you picked up the Bunty and read that, and didn’t like it, and so declared “I don’t like British comics – but I love TV21”. Which actually is a very apt analogy in more ways than one, because manga is, in my opinion, very like old British comics, except maybe ten times thicker. Just as the British comics Hotspur, Valiant, TV21, et al, were designed with boy readers in mind, and Judy, Bunty and Diana, were designed for girls, Japanese comics, manga, are designed to squarely target a particular readership. For instance my current favourites are either Seinen manga titles, like; Soil, Seizon, Death Note, Homunculus, Bio Meat, and Monster, some of which could arguably slip into the Horror genre, or Horror manga like, Voices in the Dark and New Voices in the Dark, by Junji Ito, Parasyte, The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Rabbit Doubt, and Gantz (which is arguably Seizon manga with additional horror).

This specific targeting of a particular type of reader, or demographic, is no accident, it is a clearly defined business strategy. Shojo manga targets, particularly, young girl readers. Shonen manga is aimed at young boys. Hentai is porn manga. Kodomo seeks an audience of little children. Josei appeals to adult women, and Seinen appeals largely to adult men. Shoujo ai, or Yuri manga, features stories of lesbian love. Shounen ai or Yaoi is gay love manga. Bishoujo manga, features tales of beautiful girls, and Bishonen, tales of beautiful boys. Ecchi manga, features kinkiness in some form or other, and Mecha, has robots.

There are many more categories and sub-genres, and manga continues to change and evolve. Shojo readers can graduate from Shojo, aimed primarily at school girls, to Young, (you can tell by the use of English that this is a recent addition to the manga cannon), which targets educated girls over 18, and then on to Ladies’ comics, designed to appeal to young professional women (OLs – Office Ladies) and housewives.

As you would expect, the themes and issues at the heart of the stories in Ladies Comics are more intricate and mature than their Shojo counterparts. Ladies Comics deal with marital issues and will also contain horror stories or adult themes; in other words the term Ladies Comics, covers a broad sub-genre of manga that might appear in another sub-category of manga, when the story appears in its own collection.

In addition to the most popular titles there is also Information manga, Joho, produced by companies and government agencies to impart important information to clients and employees. There is also Business manga, Bijinesu, Political manga, Seiji, Education manga, Kyoiku, and literary manga, Bunkashi.

Clearly manga is a broad church, and the stories range from material to be read to very young kids, to Fishing manga, and Golf manga, made specifically for people who enjoy angling or fishing, to instruction manuals. And it is this huge variety of titles and genres that has ensured that the postwar generation of Japanese comic book readers have been able to continue reading the comics that they love, because as they grew up, they could move up to the manga targeted at the group they had matured into – or which appealed to the lifestyles they had adopted.

Manga is also malleable, it always has been. The audience for a given manga is often further increased by the production of more than one version of the same title. The popular story, Train Man, has about three different versions, targeting both boy readers, and girl readers and young men and women.

The transition can be a simple switch to a Gekiga–style of drawing, (a darker, more realistic, less cute style), or by a subtle shift in perspective so that the story shifts more to another character’s perspective. In addition, new readership patterns, and new cultural influences are also causing manga to evolve in new ways. Manhwa, Chinese and Korean comics, and even OEL, Original English-Language graphic novels, now feed back and inform the look and style of the manga that influenced their creation.

Of course the self-imposed reader boundaries are broken all the time. Just as my cousin Allan would read his sister Mary’s copy of Bunty, as well as his copy of the Beano, many manga readers do not stick specifically to a limited genre targeting them as the ideal reader. Boys will often have a sneaky read of their sister’s Shojo Comic, and girls will often pick up Shounen titles and this has not gone unnoticed, especially in these days of economic uncertainty when every new reader is more highly-prized than ever. Some manga publishers are aiming at maximizing sales by creating crossover, or gateway stories, that create a sort of new hybrid manga genre. These hybrid stories may contain the large-breasted women and a variety of panty shots that attract boy readers (think Change123), whilst the boy heroes will resemble the androgynous Bishonen boys that appeal to girl readers.

Titles like Full Metal Panic Sigma, which combines several manga genres including Mecha and Buddy Companion, Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge, All Purpose Cultural Catgirl, Nuku Nuku, Deadman Wonderland, FrankenFran, Soul Eater, all combine elements of different genres, including action, horror, and adult themes, which makes lumping them into one narrow category quite difficult. A development that was prefigured by the work of Junko Mizuno, whose cute characters mask the gore and horror of her stories.

Rod has a regularly updated blog which you can check out, and for more information and a glimpse at some of his many works visit Rodtoons and enjoy browsing the gallery.