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Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the mahou-shoujo-and-beyond dept.

Otaku_0245 writes "I read a really interesting article at slushfactory.com entitled 'Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?' discussing/comparing the comics industries in Japan and the US. It's basically a 3-way conversation including Frederik Schodt (author of 'Dreamland Japan' - one of my favorite books about Japanese pop culture), and very thought-provoking."

2 of 383 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Better stories... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't think so. I live in Tokyo (lived in Japan for 3 years now) and I can tell you three things for sure:

    1) EVERYONE here reads manga. EVERYONE.
    2) A lot of the art sucks. People here don't read for the art (generally). They read for the stories. Um...pron excluded.
    3) I've read several manga series, and I have to tell you that most of them are totally uninteresting (at least to me) yet my Japanese friends love them (e.g., a manga about a soccer player). And most of them are NOT sci-fi.

  2. European 'manga' is popular by WSXWS · · Score: 5, Informative

    It's worth mentioning that here in France there is a very big market for manga-style comic books read by adults and teens - most book stores have big shelves of these comics. Japanese manga and anime is also available and relatively popular. The same situation also exists in Germany and Italy - Japanese manga is very popular in these countries. English-speaking countries really seem to be the exception here in that in these countries manga is virtually unknown and comic books are seen as inferior to text-only books.