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a little about manga over here
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From: Sako Ikegami <sako>
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:40:51 +0900
I've hesitated to post because despite my geographically favorably living circumstances, I'm hopelessly lacking in any real knowledge about manga and anime since I grew up outside this culture.
There is an unbelievable abundance of it here, as you might expect - the manga section in most book stores is usually twice that of the children's section, much to my chagrin. In addition to anime running on most of local channels several times a day, there are at least four cable channels showing anime 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
Manga are usually initially released in periodicals which usually come out once-weekly (Shonen Jump, etc.) to once-a-month, with some special issue releases (All Yomikiri !! : meaning the stories are complete in and of themselves) several times a year. The more popular stories from these periodicals are then subsequently compiled, edited, sometimes partially or completely rewritten and re-published in book form. Both the periodicals and manga books are very accessible, even for children on low-budget pocket money with monthly issues usually costing about 400 yen ($3.65). The manga books cost even less at about 320 yen, and there are plenty of copies available at used book stores for 500yen each. (And yes, the periodicals are printed on thick recycled paper which I believe gets recycled again and again)
Manga are available for ages ranging from birth upward, the magazines for younger children tend to be educationoriented and usually come with tons of papercraft toys to make and play with. My own girls (grades 2 and 5) are supposed to read "Ciao", which, from a brief glance through the contents seem to focus in primary school romance
(whatever that is!) and is apparently bought and read by 98% of their (female) classmates.
The major publishers of manga include Shogakukan (the parent company backing VIZ Communications), Shueisha
(the Shonen Jump company), and Kodansha-Random House.
Ask a Japanese schoolchild what she wants to be when she grows up and a fairly large percentage will reply some manga or anime-related profession. So as you can see, it's all pretty big here.
Sako
Received on Wed 21 Apr 2004 07:40:51 PM CDT
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2004 09:40:51 +0900
I've hesitated to post because despite my geographically favorably living circumstances, I'm hopelessly lacking in any real knowledge about manga and anime since I grew up outside this culture.
There is an unbelievable abundance of it here, as you might expect - the manga section in most book stores is usually twice that of the children's section, much to my chagrin. In addition to anime running on most of local channels several times a day, there are at least four cable channels showing anime 24 hours a day, 365 days a year!
Manga are usually initially released in periodicals which usually come out once-weekly (Shonen Jump, etc.) to once-a-month, with some special issue releases (All Yomikiri !! : meaning the stories are complete in and of themselves) several times a year. The more popular stories from these periodicals are then subsequently compiled, edited, sometimes partially or completely rewritten and re-published in book form. Both the periodicals and manga books are very accessible, even for children on low-budget pocket money with monthly issues usually costing about 400 yen ($3.65). The manga books cost even less at about 320 yen, and there are plenty of copies available at used book stores for 500yen each. (And yes, the periodicals are printed on thick recycled paper which I believe gets recycled again and again)
Manga are available for ages ranging from birth upward, the magazines for younger children tend to be educationoriented and usually come with tons of papercraft toys to make and play with. My own girls (grades 2 and 5) are supposed to read "Ciao", which, from a brief glance through the contents seem to focus in primary school romance
(whatever that is!) and is apparently bought and read by 98% of their (female) classmates.
The major publishers of manga include Shogakukan (the parent company backing VIZ Communications), Shueisha
(the Shonen Jump company), and Kodansha-Random House.
Ask a Japanese schoolchild what she wants to be when she grows up and a fairly large percentage will reply some manga or anime-related profession. So as you can see, it's all pretty big here.
Sako
Received on Wed 21 Apr 2004 07:40:51 PM CDT
