Where did this anime/manga trend come from?

[Abrahamian]

I'd say Cartoon Network's Toonami helped create the massive anime popularity.

[mossi-mo]

Hmm, I believe that in part, the manga trend exploded because it addressed a market that the comic world shut out. When comics came into form, they made attempts to grab at a bigger market, but it was mostly by adding different characters (women, minorities) without changing the basic structure. Manga/Anime on the other hand, did a great job saturating the market the moment that there was an opening. The first instances of anime in America did well, and with big booms such as Pokemon, Digimon, Yugioh etc influencing young children, it was only a matter of time before it became huge. Think of it this way. The bulk of anime fans are around high school-college age. That means that their favorite Saturday morning cartoons included things like Pokemon or Card Captor Sakura for as long as they can remember. (My first anime was Cowboy Bebop my first manga was Chobits). Now these kids are old enough to know how to draw, or spend enough collective money to influence the comic market.

Then there's the content.

The average western comic is around 25 pages long and is in full color. There are basically the same plot lines for every single western action comic. Someone has super powers and is good, someone has super powers and is bad, they fight, move on to the next story. Sometimes there are long overarching plot twists involving a quest or a league or something of that manner (Superman fights drugs!), but essentially Western comics found their niche and refused to budge.

When manga came into play, black and white meant that bigger books and longer continuous stories could be made. There was also a market targeting females without seeming like they were token characters in the boy's super-clubhouse. A good number of mangas concentrate more on interpersonal relationships than on punching assorted badguys in the face. There were everyman/woman characters who stayed everyman characters throughout the story. The characters are also the sole property of one artist, which means that if they die in the series, they usually can't be revived by someone else in some alternate universe in order to go through the same storyline with different villains.A lot of manga series have a solid beginning and a solid end. Some people really yearn for the denouement of whatever they're reading. With superhero comics, the story can and will go on for 70 years with no end in sight (Superman will be 75 in 2013). Characters broke out of their set body types. Pick up two manga series and chances are that the women in them won't have the exact same breast size, waist-to-hip ratio or lip fluffiness. The men as well won't always have neck muscles that can crush walnuts. (Though the averse thing is true in manga, a lot of times the men are drawn in a very feminine manner,especially in shoujo... It's rather rare to find bulky men)

With a manga you actually have to read the synopsis to know what it may be about. With a western comic, chances are if you see a bulky super dude on the cover, he's going to be punching someone/thing, saving the day and figuring out the 20 page mystery. This isn't saying that there aren't great and original western style comics out there, but most of the famous ones just hash and rehash the same stories because the creators know that this is what the western comic community wants. It's actually quite daunting if you want to enter this realm with a different story idea: say for instance a story about a girl who wants to be the best ski-jumper (Nononono) or a vastly different drawing style. Would your work be accepted if your style was as separate from Western style as Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim) is from Masashi Kishimoto (Naruto)?

It's mostly this reason that there is an absolute dearth of Western superhero comics on the web. It is a very specific style, with very specific rules and a narrowing range for originality (chances are if you can think of a superpower there's a hero with it. If not, get that copyrighted ASAP). With manga you can pick which of several styles you want to draw in (or derive your own), and pick which storyline you want. Your characters don't have to be magic, or have radiation poisoning, or get experimented on. With manga it's perfectly acceptable to get famous with a completely mundane story about how a high school girl and a guy can't tell each other that they like each other (Kimi ni Todoke) or a guy who wants to be an italian chef (Bambino!).

Also, most extremely successful mangas get an anime as well.(Or vice versa) It's sort of a one-two punch for exposure. Superhero comics get superhero cartoons, but often the story arcs are different from what's being currently released.For instance, the Justice League cartoon takes care of at least 5 superheros at once, while reading the Superman comics would be a different experience. Of course there are movies as well, but those often simplify and condense the main goal of the entire series. In the most recent Batman movies, Batman only needed to concentrate on the Joker, with Two-face as a mild side-story.

The above does not take into account Western strip comics, which have just about the same appeals as manga does, but often don't get sold in book form. Now, all this isn't to say that manga doesn't have its own tiring tropes (Why are her eyes 3/4ths of her face? Why is the 14 year old the one they picked to fly this billion dollar robot with literally no training? Why can't she just say "I like you" and get this over with? Why does everyone on earth fall in love with this single boy/girl regardless of their sexual preference? Where did all the women go in this BL (was there a gender-cide)?) But it would somewhat explain why I have met far more anime fans than I have superhero comic fans.

Now, say if someone manages to break into the western comic world with a vastly different art style (that isn't manga inspired) and story arc, perhaps people would begin to be more receptive to the Western style. But for now it's a pretty closed market. New manga is quickly out-pacing Western comics on generic bookstore shelves. Comic stores aside, check out a Barnes and Noble or a Borders. Often you can find 2 serialized Western Comics, a great number of Western comic art archives/ collections, and maybe 15 one-shot graphic novels, then the manga selection includes about 50-100 different series.


Then again there's the last and probably most important reason: I don't think I've ever been Rule 34'd by any western-action-style art.

[Thera Dratara]

Comics that are different from the norm you say... hmmm

Like bones? Or the wizard of Oz?(Okay, that last one's an adaption, but the art just makes me psysically happy).

This thread is a good read, and while there's been a lot of good arguements, I find there's a couple missing.

From what I've understood, back when the manga boom was going on, American comics were on a serious decline, I believe Marvel was saved from backruptcy by the super hero movies. Understanding Comics mentions that most of this problem came from how the American comics publishers handled their audience.

Waaaay back in the first half of the 20th century Comics were quite varied, this variation was lost to both the hays code(something that Japan lacked) and to sheer greed(super hero comics sell, so why invest into non-super hero comics?). Added to that was that the comics had a lot of crossovers and that, as earlier mentioned, you would need to read twenty different series just to keep up with your favorite character. And, on top of that, was something really nasty: Collector's editions. As in, it was genuinely hard to get ones hands on a specific issue, just for reading it, and the publishers were pandering to this collectors base as well.

So, these companies were selling to a very small target audience, which wouldn't grow bigger because the entry-level was too high(you not only need to like super hero comics, but also understand the insane multiverses around these superheroes). (The DC universe , for those not in the know, still consist of 52 alternate dimensions each with their own version of each hero. Imagine 52 versions of your favorite comic-story... Yeah)

Now put that next to the mangaboom.
Japanese comics and anime, which had different genre's and target audiences and more importantly had far more coherent plot(coherent not necessarily meaning good, but very important), came to the states where they got a warm welcome from people who wanted to read comics but couldn't before. Added to that, they were pretty cheap to license and publishers could experiment a bit more with what they would localise.

If I look at places like scans_daily I think that the licensed movies and the mangaboom are what eventually saved american comics as people were reintroduced to the medium and the franchises. But I think that from both sides(manga readers and american comic readers) there's a very high sense of generalisation going on.
Like, there's people saying that all manga is just pornograpic imagery even though you can make the same accusation of american comics(and french, oh lordy, do those European comic artists like their curvy wimmins). And then there's people saying that all american comics are the same thing over and over.
Oh and then there's the always wonderful 'Sequintial art from this and this place is always top-quality' which is never true, period. Even the talk about the colour earlier on is more a case of the artists being incompetent and not stopping to develop a style then being fault of the dimension of colour itself. Death Note could have ended up worse in black and white if the artist hadn't sat down to develop a style for it, similarly, Death Note could have looked incredible in colour because I think that the artist is competent enough to develop a good style.

In the end, the popularity of Manga-style might be an after wave of the mangaboom. But, perhaps it's also because of said generilisation. I think anyone would immidiatly buy a comic if it were recommended to them, but I think it's much more rare for people to jump into the deep end and as a Manga-geek pickup a random DC title.(And the other way around) As styles are globalising now, I think in the future we'll just be wondering why the hell all these teens are drawing overbound muscle man and curvy wimmins and rehashing clichéd plotlines.(And, ofcourse, copying that one cult-hit artist over and over)

Sorry for the many 'I believe' and 'I think's in there, it's been a while since I read up on comics history and the rest is just plain subjective.

And seriously, consider if you are making generilisations. For one, I keep noticing that when people write western comics, they mean American ones. European comic-market != American comic-market != Japanese comic-market.

And now I'm wondering what African comics are like

[desideraht]

Sailor Moon and Dragonball airing in the US in the 90's.

I am actually into it, though, because my step dad lived in Japan when he was a kid, so he showed me a ton of anime that was popular in the 80's when he was growing up (wow that makes me sound young).

You are making a bit of a logical fallacy. You're comparing really unique artists to everyone else. It's not that everyone is "unoriginal" as much as artists like Shultz were incredibly original and their style was very unique. Also understand that these are some of the earliest published comic artists. They started the industry and really made it take off.

I personally am very attracted to the manga style because of it's intensity. I find most "American" styles to be very dry. Anime exaggerated expressions, has fabulous hair and eyes, and really intense details. "American" styles tend to simply be more bland... and the more detailed it gets, the more it resembles good manga.

My manga is not Japanese-themed. It does not have Japanese culture in it. My manga does involved a cold war (not the cold war), so it teeters close to the "apocalyptic" theme you mentioned, but it's not really... It's potentially apocalyptic. If my manga has inherited any sort of Japanese theme, it's giving characters and plot devices world/life-crushing power. I will admit to that, but it's not God-modding. I have made sure to balance and limit my characters.

[Ronin356]

heaven.

[doomjazz]

Anime and manga is popular because it filled a need.

From what I can see, superhero comics are a very narrow genre, and pretty much the dominant commerical comics genre in America and the West. (Probably the only exception to this I can think of is the American Underground... but where do you go to buy those comics? Every Western comic book store I know of sells only superhero comics.)
Their target market is teenage or adult males. Think about how narrow that market is. You're missing out half the population (women), as well as children, younger teens, and older people.
Add to this the fact that a new reader has no idea where to begin to get into the superhero comics genre. There is a tangle of continuity, crossovers and alternate universes.
And what if the reader doesn't like the standard superhero plot? What if they want to read a comic about everyday events, or romance, or drama? Too bad.

Then along comes anime/manga. It's incredibly diverse, and has everything from sci-fi to slice-of-life, and actually has categories to appeal to different genders and age groups! And there's no backlog of continuity to deal with - there's long-running series, but there's also shorter series and oneshots. Anime and manga filled that need. And Western audiences just lapped it up.

Interestingly, before superhero comics became the dominant genre in the West, there actually was a wider variety of genres available. Romance and slice-of-life comics existed, as well as detective/crime series and comics aimed at children. The Hays Code in the 50s caused the medium of comics to stagnate. There's a reason a lot of people still think comics are "just for kids" - because for a long time, the writers and artists were forced to treat the audience like kids.

After the Hays Code was lifted, comics became a lot "darker" and more adult as a result. But they were still aimed at that niche market of teenage guys and adult collectors. Hence the stereotype that anyone who reads comics is a greasy white guy living in his mother's basement.

[Wulfmune]

Anime and manga is popular because it filled a need.

I agree with everything this poster wrote. It's very hard to find what I'm looking for in the American "indie" scene. I probably would never have started getting into comics, if it wasn't for manga. I liked some shonen comics, but as a whole, i tend to lean towards girlier stuff. In the end, I still just want to be entertained.

[Ronin356]

I think all the kids raised on Pokemon didn't hurt in bringing this about, also early Adult Swim.

It did exist wayyy before all this stuff. People have been collecting anime since the 80's.
It is just now more visable nowadays.

[The Bearded Man]

A thing I have noticed is how Japanese comics are often put in the ideal of a world where you can have amazing & extravagant swag even if in real life it'd get you to be heavily judged. Some people feel compelled to this ideal and resent a comic that mimics "reality" a little more (photo-realistic western comics for example) and throw you into stereotypes that they find to be old, narrow minded & stereotypical towards what we'd call "normality". In other words, they want to escape a reality that lacks all the funky visuals and awesomeness you can only find in such a comic.

Which leads to think that this ability to be more graphically creative and the cool iconography the "manga" style has to offer is more compelling to the eyes AND to the reader's imagination.

Thought, only now some people are starting to realize that you don't need this "manga" style to produce such an effect and to be visually creative. I am glad since I prefer when art-styles from a comic to another are more varied and personalized.

[darkenergy]

American comics--at least the traditional DC and Marvel--fall into some really narrow archetypes. Manga appeals to my need to see people who don't have physiques at all okay

More seriously, I think people realized that there was a whole variety of genre in manga that wasn't being explored, at least not commonly, in American. Sure, the majority is the same kind of adventure story deal, but there's a ton of historical, slice of life, etc. I could see webcomics carving into that niche eventually.

[The Bearded Man]

I could see webcomics carving into that niche eventually.

Webcomics are kinda my new hope for the future of comics and I wish that the next generation shall exploit more original stories than technical sellout machines built from statistic blueprints. Not only should the art-styles be more diversified but the content of those comics shouldn't be like what we already see out there that is already being produced in mass.

To come back to my previous point, manga introduced us to new possibilities and visual prowess. I think it is time we learn from it and start progressing instead of resting on what we found. Doing the same things over and over again. Otherwise, the revolutionary Japanese graphic style of today will become the old narrow stereotypical western comic of tomorrow.

[Omegasama]

I think it has to do with the lack of genres in western comics. Most of the stuff is either Superheroes or (in the case of Sweden) biography comics, and if you only get your hand on one or two genres then it quickly become boring. I know that manga hit in Sweden because there was NOTHING since the middle of the 90ties other than kids comics (like for 1-5 year olds) a few remaining superhero comics, gag-comics, artsy-fartsy stuff and biography stuff here, no adventure stuff, no fantasy, no sci-fi, nothing. So when they released Dragon Ball, One Piece and Fullmetal Alchemist people jumped on that shit like starving dogs.

Personally, as a kid who grew up in the 80ties I had always read manga and import comics from the US and the rest of Europe, but that was at a great expense of having to pay for imports and such. It became better when I found a import bookshop in a city 2 hours from my house (this was during the 90ties). I think I grew up with the aesthetics of manga and japanese animation thanks to stuff like Rose of Versailles, Maccross, Candy Candy and Silver Fang, I was simply drawn to that "look" so to say, more than I was drawn to Disney or other western stuff. I also liked that the animes and mangas didn't seem to treat me and other readers/viewers like idiots.

[TennoujiSaki]

AFAIK Manga/Anime style is just a collective term for the distinct styles/techniques started by the Japanese industry that have been unique in a way or more from our (Far East) place in the world. Maybe because of the taste, that Oriental style seems easier to become popular around. I see that Chinese, Korean, as well as other adjacent countries have adopted the style easily.

I often see manga/anime fans around, maybe because we're Asian here (in my country). Honestly, I see more people who are fans of western comics that turns to like manga/anime later, than seeing someone who is a fan of manga/anime and turns to also like western comic later. And I also see a very wide variety on stories, genre, demography, as well as art style on manga than on western comics (though it's just IMHO).

[corruption]

The DVD "The Animatrix" has a very good part in the special features section about how Manga came about, and mentioned it was the movie Akira that really got acceptable.
Another thing I have noticed is that children's manga and anime sometimes have games attached to them, which American style comics don't. This means the manga are pushed harder as adds for the games, and the games help drew fans together more then the normal Marvel and DC fanclubs.
Another thing to consider is the fact that they are made cheaper in Japan then western countries, and thus the people airing the shows can legally do so cheaper.
Then lastly, you will notice most western style comics try to be based in a version of the 'real' world (I think in order to avoid having to come up with a new world, explain it to the reader and make it believable). Manga don't often try to restrict themselves like that. If there are people with four arms doing a Congo line down the street while singing Brittany Spears song "Baby one more time" in Klingon, you might be able to get away with in a manga (provided you created a world where it is not too odd.) In Mangas anything can happen, and on a slow day does.

[SpiralPen]

Nothing has changed. Highly derivative stories have always come with derived styles. It's just that anime is very popular compared to previous influences, and the resulting comics are easier to see thanks to the Internet, whereas before most amateur artists had to keep their works to themselves.

Correlation does not imply causation, what we're observing now is the result of two distinct things coming together.

Maybe I should have specified. What brought this questioning about was actually a trip to my local comic store. The abundance of anime/manga styled artwork, books, comics, and graphic novels even in comparison to the stacks of Spider-Man and The Incredible Hulk, was astounding. It's difficult to base any sort of conclusion off of what is available on the internet, because EVERYTHING is available on the internet (seriously, you can buy some dude's pee). The fact that a business stocks such a large amount of something however, means it sells. If it sells massive amounts, it means it's popular (or there's a really rich dude around who likes buying thousands of copies of the same graphic novels).

Anyhow, in short, I wasn't talking about any sort of "trend" on the internet, as I don't think one can be established in such a way.

Your observation doesn't really seem to hook up with your question to me.
Giant robots, giant swords, giant monsters, gay men, and post apocalyptic worlds may be more abundant in anime and manga but they're far from exclusive to or derived entirely from them.

King Kong is a giant monster, The Fifty Foot Woman is a giant monster, Fallout 3 takes place in a Post-Apocalyptic world, and there are plenty of stories featuring large swords and gay people. I can't think of any shred of Japanese influence in any of the sources I mentioned.

Ideas are simply that, ideas. They don't all belong to any particular origin, they're merely an abstract and ever-changing mesh of influences and creativity.

So your local comic book store got a bunch of anime and manga. This is because anime and manga is popular. So are American comics. It's just that you seem to be more familiar with American comics, so their presence doesn't seem as obvious to you. If you came into America with no prior knowledge of or experience with their comics, you'd probably be like "dang, why is this superhero shit everywhere."