Anime? Manga? What do these words mean? Well, if you're new to the world of Japanese animation, tossing all these words around can be rather confusing. Here's a brief introduction into the world of Japanese animation and beyond.
Anime?
Almost international in usage, you'll find the word anime used the most to describe Japanese animation. You may also hear "Japanimation," but that may cause you bodily harm if you are amongst more serious Japanese animation fans.
The first reaction among many first time viewers is "this isn't like a cartoon." Anime takes no queues from the normal American cartoons we've all seen before. While we initially tend to compare the two, they really have very few similarities with the exception that a cartoon title or two may have used a Japanese studio for their animation work.
Anime has no boundaries when it comes to audience age or subject matter. Anime titles air at all times of the day, depending on the audience. Children's titles air during the morning hours, with the older age brackets coming later in the day. The not-so-children's titles, more commonly labeled as adult, air during the late night hours. With the wide variety of audiences comes a wide variety of subject matter. You'll find titles as plain and simple as a teenage romance, or titles with complex mecha, or robots. In between, you'll find action, adventure, mystery, suspense titles, and much more. Anything is game here, including pornographic subjects.
If you've seen any type of investigative type news reports about anime, you'll notice that they tend to focus on the adult area of the genre, making it sound like anime is nothing but pornography. Many fans have become upset over this, since it is simply not the case. Different titles are for different audiences, and once out of the hands of the studios, they have no control over who watches it.
So, why do fans like anime? Well, as with any type of "like" question, it can't be explained completely. For some people, the art is what hooks them. And for others, it's the intricate plots and the wide variety of titles. Regardless of what reason, this genre continues to gain popularity all over the world. And many big motion picture companies are beginning to dip their feet in bringing anime titles to the big screen.
If you find yourself asking "why am I watching a cartoon?," step back for a moment. Remember that anime does not follow the same mold as your typical American children's cartoon. Don't expect a cartoon when what you are watching is anime. And once you are able to differentiate the two, then you can begin to appreciate what anime has to offer.
Manga?
Manga, simply put, is the paper form of Japanese animation. It's literal translation is "cartoon," but the word is associated with comic books.
Manga is surprisingly high in detail, which explains why most manga looks more like a phone book than a comic book. The stories tend to be more drawn out, instead of condensed to a short amount of pages. Many anime titles started off as a manga, and vice-versa. And some others continue as manga after its anime form concludes.
Several companies translate and publish manga in English. While the story remains mostly intact, one volume of its Japanese counterpart may equal several volumes of the English publication. English translated manga, with its high cost to produce and its generally lower popularity, is difficult to produce in mass publications without the publisher taking a hit.
So, where does the UMBC Anime Society fall into this?
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