Manga, Anime, And Its Influence On Pop Culture

[nicojo]

More Japanese read manga than any other form of print, I've been told. I will find that for you if you want, though I wonder...more so than newspapers? Still it is impressive compared to U.S. amount of like 1% of the population. Even Europe and S. America read more comics than us. I think I read it in a Comics Journal article.

I do know there are so many different forms of manga that never reach us. Not just tentacle sex, but bike manga, high school manga, business manga?!?!?!

The period you are thinking of has a few names "Age of Unification/Azuchi-Momoyama/Namban epoch." According to my book of Japanese Culture and History. Before that was the Ashikaga. I will look to check that idea.

[Joseph Svinth]

QUOTE

In Permitted & Prohibited Desires, Allison notes that as of 1993, nearly 40 percent of all printed publications in Japan were manga, making it the "national language of mass culture."

CLOSE QUOTE

http://www.dukemagazine.duke.edu/alu...scern_txt.html

Professor Allison specializes in manga, hence Duke's collection.

[Green_Dreads]

Am I the only one who thinks business Manga sounds really scary? Scary as in, ppl would actually buy comics about business.

Samurai Manga rarely reaches international shores, but then the Japanese probably don't consider it to be very foriegner-compatible.

[FujitaMakoto]

Originally posted by Green_Dreads
Am I the only one who thinks business Manga sounds really scary? Scary as in, ppl would actually buy comics about business.

Samurai Manga rarely reaches international shores, but then the Japanese probably don't consider it to be very foriegner-compatible.

I think a visual "crutch" makes everything easier to understand...kind of like the emoticons we use to clarify our emotions . I know that if some prof. would just pick up a piece of chalk and write/draw on the board my life would be much easier.

I'm not sure if the Japanese are the only ones determining that samurai manga wouldn't be foreigner compatible I think the marketing here in the US is filtering stuff and saying "no one is going to buy this". Besides the market here in the U.S. isn't THAT open minded compared to some European country, Canada and the rest of Asia which not only imports alot of Japanese media but also U.S. multimedia as well.

Folks say that consumers drive the market...that saying should be amended to: "Consumers drive the market based on what is available to begin with"

[Devaldo]

I was into anime probably before I was serious in martial arts. Dragon Ball Z was my first, actually. Although, I'm not into it as much as I used to I'll watch it ocassionaly. But, I tell you, Rurouni Kenshin did get me interested in swordsmanship.

Jon

I'm afraid to admit it but Kenshin also got me into swordmanship but that's not necessarily a bad thing i mean, now i'm on my way to become a great martial artist.

Devon Bodak

[Hishaam Bendiar]

I think a visual "crutch" makes everything easier to understand...kind of like the emoticons we use to clarify our emotions . I know that if some prof. would just pick up a piece of chalk and write/draw on the board my life would be much easier.

I'm not sure if the Japanese are the only ones determining that samurai manga wouldn't be foreigner compatible I think the marketing here in the US is filtering stuff and saying "no one is going to buy this". Besides the market here in the U.S. isn't THAT open minded compared to some European country, Canada and the rest of Asia which not only imports alot of Japanese media but also U.S. multimedia as well.

Folks say that consumers drive the market...that saying should be amended to: "Consumers drive the market based on what is available to begin with"

There are also some manga themes that get totally reworked so as not to "offend" religious beliefs which i noticed in US dubbing, not the case with French or Spanish ones, something else it took a long time for the western world to understand that animes are like movies as far as who should and shouldn't watch depending on maturity level, i mean look at works like Hokuto no Ken (Fist of th north star) and many others, the whole anime is censored when it comes to blood why because people in charge in the western world think that animes equal cartoons for kids.
My all time favourit manga is Lone wolf and cub, i'm into mangas which have a "realistic" style of drawing. Last but not least the manga is always better than the anime story wise IMHO.

PS:there has to be an inspiration to get into MA be it movies, cartoons, family etc... It doesn't matter as long as you're serious about you training and anyhow the eternel wanabes filter themselves out naturally when faced with the reality of training in a MA.

[Tri-ring]

I forget the name of the period, but I understand before the Edo period art became very important in the Japanese popular culture of the time, and the word 'Manga' that we use to describe the graphic novel of Japan today was used once to describe wooden block paintings, although I'm lacking information about this. All I heard was a hunch on a Japanese website.

European art of the 19th century was very much inspired by Ukiyoe or Mangae as some would call it. Most famous would be Vincent van Gogh. As you can see in the back of his self portrait you can find a pciture of a Ukiyoe.
Interesting part is that these Ukiyoes were not exported intentionally, they were used as buffers or fillings for exporting ceramic potteries and such.

The interesting part of manga story lines are that their are no complete good or evil just a shade of grey and the bounderies gets blurred as the audience becomes more mature.
Most of it comes from "Fujori" adopted from Buddhism theory of, one's life is not controlled by a benevolent soul.

K.Miwa

[Josh Reyer]

I'll probably get in a lot of trouble for saying this, but in my opinion, if they paid attention, a person could learn far, far more about Japanese culture from one year of anime-watching/manga-reading than they could from 20 years of doing budo.*

*Noting, that those who do budo for 20 years in Japan of course end up learning a lot more about Japanese culture than our hypothetical one-year anime watcher.

[Hishaam Bendiar]

[QUOTE=Josh Reyer]I'll probably get in a lot of trouble for saying this, but in my opinion, if they paid attention, a person could learn far, far more about Japanese culture from one year of anime-watching/manga-reading than they could from 20 years of doing budo.*
QUOTE]

If i'm not mistaken, what you meant to say is that you would know more about the "pop" part of the japanese culture by reading manga and watching animes and that in itself is more than what a budoka would know about by training for years without living in japan.