Is manga still a booming trending genre?

[auren256]

Hi, first of all I'll make a very little introduction of myself. I'm Spanish and I'm working as a comic artist and illustrator continuously since 2008 -though I published my first comics in 2001-. My style is manga, my strongest influences have been always the Japanese animation and comics, appart of a lot of European comics that I used to read.

My question is symple: I lived the effervescence of the manga in the 90's, after the boom of the movie Akira and the animation series of Saint Seiya and Dragon Ball, that were showed on TV on the first years of that decade in my country. After that, a lot of new young incoming artist began to draw manga, and some of them -as myself- are still publishing at the moment.

Today, a new generation of artist have come, and I see that manga is not in the best moment. I mean, now I don't see people reading manga like before. There are tons of pages scanned on the Internet, and I supose that's a very critical reason for the low sales of manga in paper. But appart of that, the videogames and cosplays are more popular than just reading manga.

In the world of webcomics I see that the predominant style of drawing is middle manga/ middle cartoon. Some "american cartoon" style, like Avatar the Last Airbender, for example. I hope I'm explaining myself right. English is not my main language so forgive me if I'm not fluent.

Do you see that change? Where do you think is manga at the moment in question of popularity?

[Alli]

I have noticed that a lot of anime are becoming very similar and difficult to tell apart. Whenever a new season starts and all the new shows get released, you can tell from the cover art if it is going to be a harem, magical girl, etc. They start looking generic. Then you get stuff like Sword Art Online and Kill la Kill which are rather different in their setups. The industry needs more shows that don't look like 10 other existing titles. Bleach took forever to be published because the story was too similar to Yu Yu Hakusho, but then it became incredibly popular. I like Bleach more than Yu Yu Hakusho, but this just reinforces publishing companies to stick with the same old story. Now the genres are so concrete that it's difficult to categorize a new series if it doesn't fit into a premade mold. A lack of innovation will kill the industry eventually so we need newer ideas. Luckily, it has historically been an industry that accepts new and strange ideas so I think it will be fine. American comics could learn a thing or two, honestly.

As far as manga goes, it is indeed booming, but the American market for it is ultimately flawed. Tokyopop had a good run selling manga about 10 years ago, but fans want new chapters as quickly as possible. New chapters can hit the internet long before Tokyopop or any other major American publisher puts it into print, so of course it's going to take away from sales. Tokyopop needs to offer an online manga reader that updates with the newest chapters soon after their release in Japan if they want to stay relevant. Make it a subscription service and get some ad revenue to top it off. Readers in return get consistent quality updates. Maybe have a secondary subscription service to mail new books of a series once they are released in print. They also need to put more effort into finding American comic creators that they can publish as exclusive content. They have a few but none of them ever seemed all that great tbh.

For comics in general, I would recommend you create a more unique style rather than relying on the manga industry. It's so flooded with content (often mediocre content at that) that you most likely will not get much attention from it. Scour the internet and find new art and storytelling styles. Don't ever let yourself be caged by characteristics of only one or two media forms.

[SpavVy]

Another thing too is people are becoming more picky about what they read including myself when it comes to something done in the anime or manga style, when I see a lot of anime now when it comes to the art is "what's the difference?" Panty and Stocking, Katanagatari, Ergo Proxy and Kaiji for example all have completely unique feels to them so if you're going for an anime style one thing to try is to maybe make it look different or just overall work on a different art style all together because anime and manga isn't doing so hot at the moment the way I see it.

[auren256]

Lunox99, you ave exposed some very interesting points. Beggining for the bottom of your comment, that's very common that people think that I only read manga because that's my style of drawing, and it's not like that. In fact, I don't use to read manga almost ever (some from Urasawa and kentaro Miura), but European comics, some american comicbooks, and now I'm much into webcomics, with lots of different styles. The fact that I draw manga must be becasue I grew up watching '80s anime on tv -I'm not exactly a "teen"- and I have that "imprint". But lately a lot of friends are encouraging me to use a different style of drawing and narrating, to open my target. There are still a lot of prejudices about manga. Thank you so much for your suggestion (this is the 3rd time in a week that I receive the same, and I don't believe in casuality ^^).

Talking about the manga drawing style, I find very important that there are different studios and series with a clearly recognizable style, to make followers who want to imitate that style. That's how a new wave of artist is born. I miss seeing people imitating the drawing style of some series as it happened with Dragon Ball, for example.

About the themes, you're right when saying that this is very difficult to find new ideas. I think the problem with Japanese comics is the publishing method: comics are included in gender magazines and every comic has to fit in some of them: shonen, shojo, seinen... (Though they're also alternative mangas, I pray to see them!). When I published my first manga in Spain it was a challenge because of this. People asked me wich genre my manga was, and they needed to know if it was a shojo or a shonen... but my comic was both, and that's something nobody could assimilate.

The comic world needs urgently a digital publishing format. It's not rational that amateurs translators have a comic translated in a few hours, but for publishers it take weeks or months to make the same. Because they need to publish +160 pages volumes, as well. And I see a lot of inspired and talented artists making webcomics who could work professionally with publishers if the industry modernizes finally.

[auren256]

(Sorry if I post twice, I'd like to separate the answers).
As Lunax commented before, we are no more suprised by new ideas and original themes (very rarely). My wish would be not to have to abandon the manga style, honestly. But that depends on a lot of facts that are not on my hands.

[keii4ii]

You don't have to completely abandon your style, but at the same time, don't limit yourself to it. Learn how real people and real things look. Everyone knows what a human face looks like, but they haven't truly learned the human face until they can actually draw it well! Do life drawings; draw real people and real things in front of you, without giving them a manga look. Do this for practice, and you can apply what you learn from that when you draw in a manga style.

I don't think manga is the only prejudiced style out there. Some people avoid Bollywood movies because they don't like certain things those movies tend to have in common. Some people avoid what they call chick flicks. I tend to avoid comedies and romance. You can't make something that will appeal to everyone.

HOWEVER, do ask yourself if the style you're using is the right one for the story you want to tell. If your style screams cute but the story is gritty, for example, that might not work well unless you successfully use the contrast to your advantage.

Another example is this Naver comic called the Ladies Bathhouse Report (not yet officially translated as far as I know). It's a gag-a-day type thing about silly things that happen in, well, the ladies section of a public bathhouse. The art style is very simplistic, almost childish, and fits the silly mood perfectly. The characters are naked 95% of the time, and it doesn't bother anyone because the style doesn't make the characters look sexy (for the young women) or ugly (for the older women). If this comic used a more realistic style (which the creator is capable of), the nudity would suddenly become a HUGE issue. The entire comic would just break.

Even if you think your style is a mixture of everything, this principle could still apply, and there may be certain things you can tweak to make it work better for that specific story. Maybe it's going B&W versus full color. Maybe it's using bright colors rather than softer colors. Or maybe it's something completely unrelated to colors. It's something to think about.

[ck_tapastic]

Naver comic called the Ladies Bathhouse Report (not yet officially translated as far as I know). It's a gag-a-day type thing about silly things that happen in, well, the ladies section of a public bathhouse.

Oh my god, that's my favorite. So hilarious.

[melonramune]

Ok to answer your question, here's a brief history lecture along with my interpretation of it...
As for physical manga reading, it is still very popular but most definitely in decline. A lot of manga are migrating to webcomic/manga formats. For instance, Pixiv magazines or even large scale magazines such as MagGarden BEATS. Since it's free, most users prefer to read online rather than buy the physical manga. Bc manga is converting to online formats, there is a decline in physical manga as well. It's cheaper for companies to host online and ad revenue gives them decent pay. There is also the overwhelmingly large production of anime within these years, so that also snatched away some manga readers [we're currently in what Japan calls the "anime bubble"]. Cosplay is on the rise due to more people reading manga, since manga has become a global phenomenon. People from everywhere are reading and watching manga and anime, so more cosplay.
The style you see in webcomics today is also a result of the globalization of manga [and anime]. In the late 90s, manga and western cartoon styles were completely different because the two cultures rarely interacted [albeit initially Japanese cartoons were inspired by Western ones so the styles used to be similar, but that's a different story]. At the height of Western cartoons during the 70s and 80s, anime was only beginning to rise. But as time went on, Japan was making more anime [and much more cheaply] than the West. Therefore, it became more economical for western companies to license anime rather than make their own cartoons. This brought anime all over the world and sparked a decline of Western cartoons. So the teenagers during the 2000s watched anime and, as they enter the animation industry during these years, brought their anime influences into their own work. And if you check the credit rolls, many cartoon companies have also been recruiting Japanese, Korean, and Chinese staff, many of which grew up watching anime.
As globalization occurs, we see a blend of different styles and cultures. Comics and manga are no exception. It's not entirely that manga is in decline; it's migrating to different formats and evolving due to globalization.

[auren256]

Of course, choosing the correct style of drawing for each work is one of the bases of making comics .For the story I'm making now, manga is the best choice. Not only because of the drawing but also the narrative, wich is very important.
My question is most about if manga is so popular today than it was in the 90s

[auren256]

Right! In fact, Western studios have been hiring Japanese animators since the 80s (Transformers, GiJoe...) but I guess it was in the 90s when it was more common, also bringing the animators themselves to the Western studios, not hiring the Japanese studio as a commissioned work in the distance. You can see a big list of Japanese people between the staff of the Gargoiles or Batman cartoons, for example.

Um, I think cosplay is popular not only because manga itself, but also anime (for me these are two very different things), super-heroes movies and videogames. But when I go to a manga or a comic convention, I don't really see young people buying manga comics. It's like everyone knows the last anime, the trending game and the popular characters, but they watch everything through internet and they don't use to buy comics. In the 2000s you could see everyone in the conventions buying lots of manga volumes and complete series... I supose that's because of the Internet definitely :/

Lately I've talk with some friends who are publishing comics in France or USA, and they realized that manga is not anymore the style the readers ask for. But in the other hand, the newest BDs, graphic novels and american comics have been fed by the manga narrative, the characters... so may be we are in a new era of comics, the global era for them too.

[melonramune]

But tbh I don't see too much of a change in cosplay. In Japan, cosplay for video games, anime, manga, and everything has always been the norm. Imo, it's just that we've been seeing more of that idea move to our countries.
People don't buy comics and manga anymore bc it's all online. If something is online, it's readily available and often times free. Buying physical comics and manga can be a hassle for many readers, so most end up reading online and even paying the creators online. It's not that they're not buying manga anymore, it's that they're paying for it in different ways. Before, readers used to pay for comics and manga and buy the physical books, but now they pay in donations and views. I wouldn't say that's a bad or good change, but things certainly are evolving in a very different fashion.
I also wouldn't really say that manga isn't in style anymore...it's more that there's no such thing as a manga style anymore [or any to begin with... the idea of a "manga style" was invented strictly for western marketing purposes]. As the stereotypical manga style and western cartoon styles mix, there's no definitive "manga style" anymore. Anything that's strictly "manga style" or "western cartoon style" is considered awkward by today's standards. For instance, you have stuff like PantyStocking or Kill la Kill rising to popularity because of this new rising popularity of Japanese/Western style blends.

[auren256]

That's right, talking about a "manga style" can be too generic when you know anything about manga, as well as talking about american comics or cartoons. There are some general differences though.

Also, we can't compare the popularity of some manga or anime in the 90s with another from today, since globality and internet has increased a lot the number of fans of everything. Talking in numbers (thanks to wikipedia), Dragon Ball was a worldwide hit with 230 millions of volumes sold around the world. One Piece has sold 345 millions of volumes in the half of time, and I think that's just because the increasing of manga popularity and of the access to technology and communication of the last 15 years.

In my personal experience I can tell about something I've noticed. When I was 15~20 we were a lot of people who used to draw manga style. There was a lot of them going to comic schools and publishing fancines. Now I'm a teacher in a manga workshop and there's tremendously hard to find young people who want (to learn) to draw comic. They always say that's too slow and hard to draw, but it has always been like that! I supose that they're used to get things faster, to the immediacy of the current technology and entertainment. The most I get with them is that they draw some illustration. There are exceptions, of course.

OMG I'm feeling like a grandma talking about old battles xD

[nikacomics]

I think manga is booming still! I grew up without much exposure at all to manga, but thanks to a recommendation by a classmate, starting finding manga to read online. This warmed me to the genre. I can definitely see the Internet hurting the physical business, but the accessibility of the material ensures that manga is as widely read as it ever was. It's just finding a way to monetize it that's the issue, and it seems in this regard, Korean manhwa has made more headway here (just look at Tapastic!).

I do like the hybridization of manga and Western-style cartoons in webcomics because I feel like this style is created for people like me; we recognize the influences, but then put our own twist on it, reconciling the different styles to address our own cultural tastes and preferences. Some artists/creators might do this intentionally, since audiences not previously exposed to manga might find the stylization off-putting. Usually the first things to go are the huge shoujo eyes; I see a lot of Americans dabbling in shounen with no reservation whatever.

[ck_tapastic]

hybridization of manga and Western-style cartoons in webcomics

When done right, this would be very very interesting.

[auren256]

Korean manhwa has made more headway here

You're right, that's very common right now, some chinesse manwa(is it right?) as well : )
I love them!

[nikacomics]

Guess it depends on how you interpret that! xD I just came across two new series on Tapastic I would put into that category: Love! Love! Fighting! and Project Survival...