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Why Does Manga Succeed Where American Comics Fail?
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."
The answer here is culture. Not so much traditional japanese vs american, but just a level of acceptance.
In the US comics are still seen as trash. the language of people who aren't bright and have nothing to do with their time better than waste life. This is not true however, the perception remains.
In the US there is of course a subgroup who appreciate such works, and know there is more to it
Japanese culture in general appreciates these things a little better. Without judgment on the content, there hasn't been such a strong surge of "these are trash" during the last 40 years.
Whether or not something is good or bad is often irrelevant. When it is pushed under it becomes a subculture, which in the US is what we have more than Japan
it has variety, not afraid to discuss 'taboo' topics, and every series ends, unlike american comics where most of the super-heroes are still alive or are just re-introduced as X "Unlimited".
Probably because there's a stigma for adults in the U.S. to be reading picture books, just as there's a bias for adults to consider animation kid-fare.
Doesn't mean that it's right or wrong, but it's there. Aside from shorts, and comic strips, the adult audience in the U.S. is very unlikely to go out and buy serialized graphic novels, or watch 2D animated films, irregardless of quality (unless it's a Disney film.)
Also, "comic books" in the US has a very specific designation, for a maybe 30 page pulp story, sold in racks. If you broaden the term to include stuff like Doonsbury, Peanuts, and Garfield, then I'd argue that we have a pretty good penetration, which reflects format. The article mentions that japanese will buy manga to pass the time while on the subway - I'd just buy a newspaper, and take a glance at the comics while I browse through the business section. Different media drive different formats, for different audiences.
If you look at it that way, then US syndicated short format strip comics are not a failure. It's the traditional larger format pulp stuff that isn't selling well, probably because it's so damnned expensive. Hell, $3.00 for a single issue of Usagi Yojimbo??? For the cost of two comics, I can buy a remaindered copy of a Tom Clancy novel. That'd take up at least a week's worth of commuting on a bus or subway.
People forget these things because they get bored with them.
Now thats a point against American superheroes - mangas do end! No matter how good you are, you just cant continue a story forever. Wheres the end of Spiderman? Whats The Punisher grand finale? When will Superman get old?
Japanese are more smart - the comics eventually finish, sales go high, and if they see potential, theyll make more comics with the same style.
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
The reason that comics in the US do not have the wide appeal of manga in Japan is obvious in just listening to a comic fan attempt to describe manga. It usally goes something like, "they're like comics, but they're about anything. Everyone reads them."
There's a perception in the US that comics (the name itself is skewed, which is why so many have tried to use terms like "graphic literature", etc.) can only contain "kids" stories and their only fan-base are otaku.
This is not true, of course, but it's correct for a majority of comics (getting less so over the past 10 years) and a majority of readers (still quite true). Until both of those change, the stereotypes will remain. There *should* be more comics about everyday life that appeal to everyone.
If you've been out of the loop and are interested in catching some of the more interesting comics out there, here are some of the ones that I've found interesting (note: not all of these are traditional comics, but some are and the rest are certainly not mainstream literature by any measure):
Superheros:
* Astro City -- What its like to live with supers
* TOP10 -- In a world where everyone from the meter-maids to the homeless are super-heros, what are the police like? Odd premise, great book.
* Rising Stars -- In a midwest town, a meteor strikes causing all in-utero babies in the area (113 of them) to develop unusual abilities when they're born. The 24-issue series follows their lives and deaths and the politics that surrounds them.
Fantasy / Alternate History:
* League of Extraordinary Gentlemen -- An amazingly cool look at an alternate history where all of the late 1800s and early 1900s fantasy, adventure and science fiction books are true. Everyone from Sherlock Holmes to Captn. Nemo to Dr Jeckle are in the story, and it works well.
* Girl Genius -- A fun story about a world that can only do high-tech through magical individuals known as sparks.
* Lucifer -- The title character is the angel, cast out of heaven and formerly ruler of hell. This is a spin-off of the classic late-80s/early-90s series Sandman.
These are the books that I read now. Fantasy and super-heros are well established genres for comics, and they're done well in many cases. It's just too bad that there aren't more genres being allowed in. Real science fiction makes an attempt every now and then, and sometimes it works, but often it does not. The slice-of-life stories that really made manga are almost non-existant. In fact, the closest US comics came to that, AFAICT is Archie.
1. Overused / unrelatable characters. In the US comic market, there are three types of characters: thoroughly recycled, new but testosterone saturated, and "girl's stuff." The "New" spiderman has been done for so many generations it is hard to get anyone interested. The Maxx was a highly accessable character with a surprising amount of depth... if you could get past the fact that he looked like a van with p3nises coming out of his hands. Most people can't. And if you are only selling comics in bastions of testosterone (comic book shops), how do you plan to sell comics about human issues? Japanese comics come in all flavors, all sizes. They're not as stereotyped, but they don't go out of their way to fit a stereotype. Not every manga cover in Japan involves a big sweaty guy holding a weapon. (Yes, I'm aware that Johnny the Homicidal Maniac is a small sweaty guy holding a weapon. That's why he's more accessable.)
2. Most American comic books are franchises of a successful main character, while manga are plot-driven stories involving characters. Many comics are written as independent stories by multiple authors, which makes it difficult to change anything canon about the character / world without getting a quorum at a committee. The character is left exactly where he started at the beginning of the comic book having gone nowhere. And there generally is only superficial interaction between the independent stories. Manga seem decidedly more plot driven, with characters serving as focal points rather than subject matter. Kaneda was hardly in Akira in any substantive way, and mostly served to allow the story to unfold. No one in their right mind would suggest an Akira 2 just because you could carry the character over. But such a thing is assumed in American comics all the time.
3. Comic books are unsatisfyingly short. After actively searching out a source, finding a comic book shop, and driving to it to get the latest copy of Big Sweaty Guy with a Gun: Reborn, you would expect to be have at least some entertainment from it... right? Well, unless you found that rarity of American comics, the compilation, chances are it is 20 pages long, 1/2 of which are action tiles and need no reading, and which can be finished in about 7 minutes. And don't forget to tune in again next month when they release the next 7 minutes of the story. Either your story is going to have a plot that wouldn't challenge the teletubbies, or your reader is going to get bored and move on in the year and a half it takes to finish your storyline. In japan, compilations seem to be far more common than they are here, with many, many more pages to read. I have never seen a japanese comic anywhere near as short as ours, page for page. It's just not worth bothering to spend 20 minutes every month for a year picking up a comic that you are going to read in 7... but picking up one of those ubiquitous manga in 30 seconds while shopping, and reading it for 2 hours? That's not a bad deal.
Sadly, none of the above seem to be changing any time soon. Plot driven comics with accessable characters served out in meals not bites? Sadly, not while the big two are still in charge.
The ______ Agenda
Ok, this is a common theme with people who don't understand the Japanese, so I'll field it.
You take a generation of children. You make them all dress the same. You emphasize gender differences in clothing, to make sure nobody accidently becomes attracted to members of the same sex. You do this throughout the entire period a person develops genitals, develops sexual feelings, hits puberty, falls in love, enters the most intense period of sexual excitation in their lives, peaks, then slowly eases off that peak. Only then do you let the opposite sex wear whatever they want. I can guarentee you just made a double-digit percentage of that group a fetishist of whatever clothing that opposite sex group wore. Women are lucky (sort of) in this situation because they don't peak until significantly after such a time when their opposite sex group can change clothing, and therefore generally don't develop this fetish.
And, of course now the only people wearing thoes fetishized clothes are age 6-19 year old girls. But it isn't really about the children, it's about the clothes. My mother (japanese) looked like she was 12 until the day she turned 50. If you're attracted to 14 year old japanese girls, chances are you would be every bit as attracted to a 35 year old japanese woman in a schoolgirl outfit. Without falling onto all look same stereotypes, you probably wouldn't be able to tell the two apart.
Schoolgirls in manga isn't about child pornography, it's a deeply rooted schoolgirl uniform fetish. It's one of the more powerful fetishes I've come across (though I don't have it, thankfully), and it is one that we are going to pass onto our children if we persist with these rediculous school uniform rules we have popping up around the country.
The ______ Agenda
The article was not about the few the Manga titles that get imported to the USA from Japan. But rather the state of the industry in Japan and how ubiquitous comics are in Japan. Also the fact that the majority of manga is in very thick, low quality, cheap volumes that are read and disposed of (like a newspapers or cheap paperbacks) rather than the expensive pamphlets of the US (oops my WEF roots are showing).
Also you're dismissal of the entire Manga industry on the basis of Ranma 1/2 is the equivalent of dismissing the publishing industry based upon romance novels, or the film industry based upon childrens movies like "Home Alone" and "Free Willy". If you don't like one example it's not a case for condeming the entire medium. But then I guess straw men are much easier than real opponents to knock down.
The success of Cerebus is actually similar to that of Manga in that it is the collected volumes not the original comics that are the final repository. Also Dave Sim has control of his creation which is a very rare thing in the US comic industry. His story also has a specific goal and will finish soon. This is extreemly rare in the US industry and more than anything leads to the repetition and unenven quality which is why a large number of people stop reading comics after a certain time.
In Japan Rumiko Takahashi, responsible (you may prefer culpable) for Ranma, has created 4 major series the first three of which reached conclusions and stopped (the fourth is still ongoing). Rather than the concept becoming stale and repetitive she finished and started another new story. Also her stories are about the characters. Whilst the situations provide the background for the drama and conflict it is the characters which make people want to read them.
Whilst the best of American comics may reach this level sometimes it is normally in only one small area (superheroes) which do not appeal to a great number of people. In Japan the breadth of the subjects of manga are those of any literature and so most people can find subjects that are interesting to them. So whilst areas of this may go through peaks and troughs as a while it continues in strength.
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