What is Anime & Manga? This article was designed to help answer the many Animanga questions by starting at the very beginning. Anime (Japanese animation) is Japanese stylized animation. Manga (Japanese Comics) is a term for Japanese style comics, and Animanga is a combinative word for Anime and Manga combined together. There are many types of Animanga and things to do in the Animanga community. When someone is watching Anime or reading Manga the aim is to get the experience from the show maker of the story they are trying to tell that causes a stir of emotions if they are good. The most well-known Animanga characters are Goku from Dragon Ball Z, Ash from Pokemon, and Usagi from Sailor Moon. What is identified as Animanga might be the style of design of colorful bright designs of decently high contrast, characters animation style, and expansive world themes that seem to always push the envelope of the imagination. The Art of Animanga In practice anime is easier than drawing realism in all its techniques, however a great understanding of realism is necessary to imagine the perspective of angles and the image as a whole. This means people have to still go through the process of realism before incorporating the simplified and minimalistic shapes with masterful color selection to create animanga styled drawings. However, this does not mean that intensive realistic shading can't bring out a different variation of animanga that emphasizes the arts, but it is rarily seen in animation and more in illustrations artforms. It is a not a fad, but another category of artform that develops with the times. Talking about the style of large eyes, bright colors, and costume like outfits in thematic worlds that have exaggerated emotions come from the early techniques of western animation. Early anime artists were largely influenced Walt Disney's creations like Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Mickey Mouse, and Max Fleischer's Betty Boop. Animanga In Japan For simplicity the terms Anime is Japanese styled animation and Manga is Japanese styled comics, when in Japan its the common words of animation and comics in general. Historically anime was born out of western animation inspiration. Japanese Animanga story telling is different from traditional western cartoons that cover more aduly topics that would be not considered for children in America. Western cartoons are considered for children specific audience. In Japan Animanga is designed for all varying ages and labeled as such in its genre types, so it is common for teenagers and adults to stay interested in animation and comics. There are also series with content meant for gender specific audiences of boys (shounen) or girls (shoujo) Service to Niche Crowds Anime has many benefits in its beautiful shows that tell powerful stories from another world that teach people about another culture and the importance of others feelings. While many western shows are action packed, Japanese animation tends to spend more time looking at daily objects and scenarios to get a feeling of home, especially in romances and slice of life animanga series. Some themes might be seen as daring from the large amount of category specific audiences that allows show makers to have a little creative liberty within their powers of making shows. Where did it come from? Animanga came from Japan over to America and was translated for American audiences. The originally came in the form of large chapter comics called "Graphic Novels" and the video format at the time was VHS tapes. Older audiences showed there was an audience for Animanga, so they eventually brough kids shows over. Back in the 90's there was a "Western Anime Golden Era" where young kids were watching "Dragon Ball Z" in the morning with Goku and Vegeta battling it out with fierce martial arts, but there was the magical girl option of Serena [Usagi] and the Sailor scouts saving the world from demons for the sake of love and justice. Other shows at the time that solidified an interest in Animanga were shows on Cartoon Networks program "Toonami" that included titles like: Tenchi Muyo, Gundam 8th MS Team, Gundam Wing, Outlaw Star, Yu Yu Hakusho,Trigun, Rurouni Kenshin, Evangelion, and many others. Deep Shows Deep Connections This was a big change from the typical happy go lucky adventure cartoons at the time with trends in animation leaning more towards serious teenage plots and themes. The American western cartoons who helped people transition into the more serious story plots were "The Amazing Spider Man", "Exosquad", "Gargoyles", and "Batman the Animated Series. Side by side Anime and Cartoons were making a big impact on what children of the time wanted to watch. How Easy is it to Get Started? Animanga is really easy to get started. You simply find any video playing device that has Wi-Fi connection, Cellular Data, or any other way to the inernet and start watching. Shows are bad quality online if they are free, but subscribing to a service like Crunchyroll can make copyrighted Anime much easier and enjoyable to watch with the higher quality streams. Animanga can really take alot of time to go through Television shows, so many people stick with movies in the beginning to see if the time is worth it for them. If you know that time is going to be hard to come by regardless, consider being selective over what sort of show you would like to see by reading a few reviews on sites to get a glimpse of what to expect. If your cut for time there is a couple suggestions in the recommended starters section below. Recommended Starters Its much easier to geek out so to speak with shows being accessable on portable electronic devices and the internet being so wide spread for streaming services. It is not to say the stigma has faded entirely, but it surely is not as negative as it use to be to geek out on shows. Even if it is much easier it isn't that easy to get too many recommended shows that target the wide audience, since shows are catered to small slices of specific niche audiences in animanga. The shows that many people start off with are sometimes referred to as gateway animanga. Most notable of studios that get people into the interest of animanga is Studio Ghibli with high acclaimed titles like (My Neighbor Totoro, Howls Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke, The Secret World of Arietty, and Ponyo). Another great studio is Studio Chizu with titles of (The Girl who Lept Through Time, Summer Wars, and Boy and The Beast).
The Formats and Titles The Gateway of Anime might be in its movies, but publishers have several formats. There are Television series that last about 12 episodes per season and are low to medium budget most of the time at 20-minutes, OVA series that are about 8 episodes long and take a long time to come out due to their near movie quality which are about 60-minutes long, and then comes the most common format of feature length movies that are about 120-minutes. Back in the days of VHS a prominent format was Fansubs and Fandubs where fans made subtitled unsigned shows and voiced their own take on a show by being the voice actors, but these days its rarily seen. The internet is starting to make most shows available on streaming, so Television and Movies are taking center stage with not many if any OVA's being made. Most shows that aim to be like an OVA are now multi-episodic movies. Once you've seen a few shows it might be the right time to venture out into the rest of the anime titles for an expanded idea of whats out there. Notable titles that are suggested are (Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, Gundam 8th: MS Team, Cowboy Bebop, Evangelion: Movie series , Tenchi Muyo: Universe, and Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood). The Definition of Otaku
Otaku takes influences from various cultures including Japan, American, China, and Korea. In Japanese slang the word Otaku stands for a person who specializes in a hobby. Many times Otaku also stands for someone who has an obsessive interest or stays indoors often without socializing. Many do not admit to being Otaku in Japan, because the term Otaku seems to hold negative connotations. The term Otaku comes from the word “taku” which means inside the house or house. The word Otaku started in Japan. In Japanese, it means obsessed or liking something to excess. However, internationally, Otaku is known as someone who is highly interested in Japanese Traditional Culture, and Anime/Manga. The term Otaku became popularized from Akio Nakamori in 1983 from Otaku no Kenkyu, however the character Lynn Minmay from Macross TV series first brought the word up in 1982. In English, the term is more of a loanword with no negative connotations. Even though it has its previous meanings in Japanese language, the definition is different for some outside Japan. The word Otaku is used when describing someone who passionately enjoys Japanese culture, language, and food, anime, manga, models, video editing, drawing, and/or Japanese history.Otaku gained popularity from the Japanese animation, manga, maid cafe, and idol scene in Akihabara Japan in the early 1990s. The culture developed internationally with the Japanese culture enthusiasts, Anime Manga Otaku, Japanese and Korean Language majors, Animation Music Video editors, and Karaoke communities during the 2000s. The Types of Otaku While Otaku is a lone word in the Western world as a developing culture of people who like Animanga and Japan... In Japan the word stands for "Passionate, Obsessed, Geek of something". This means there is a whole vocabulary of types of Otakus in Japan that fit the Japanese description of the word Otaku. Since the word Otaku comes from Japan the vocab of types is secondary definition in the western world of what otaku means in respect of the original meaning. In Japan the typical types of Otaku or Ota for short are: Anime Ota, Manga Ota, Seiyu Ota [Voice Actor Otaku], Cosplay Ota, Figure Ota, Maid Ota, Idol Ota, Game Ota, Gunji Ota [Military Otaku], Eroge Ota [Erotic Games Otaku], Tetsudou Ota [Train Otaku], History Ota, and Pasocon Ota [Computer Otaku]. Expanded Interpretation The advanced discussions in the Otaku community add new progression in possible side stories and options of concepts that fit with the inner workings of the given series that are not found in the cannon show. As certain ideas are fleshed out through discussion of possibility, further the idea mill that can be used by series creators of special aspects or character story ideas that have been expanded on, and even an increasing amount of those interested from fandom depicted in doujinshi comics and fan made projects. It challenges both the audience and creators to fine-tune their series to the most it can be for maximum satisfaction of otaku and total profitability. Otaku has always been a storyline that takes watchers on a journey - the story that effects the creator and the audience - set in the world of animation that make any possibilty. The Otaku culture has been taken the idea of creation and moved past it into the world of exploring through socializing for even stronger bonds amongst others who share the same passion. A nod to the old and a step into tomorrow.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
|