Manga (漫画?) listen is the Japanese word for comics and print cartoons. Outside of Japan, it usually refers specifically to Japanese comics. As of 2007, manga represents a multi-billion dollar global market.[1] Manga developed from a mixture of ukiyo-e and foreign styles of drawing, and took its current form shortly after World War II. It comes mainly in black and white, except for the covers and sometimes the first few pages; in some Animanga all the pages are colored. Popular manga are often adapted into anime (Japanese for animation) once a market interest has been established (Manga is sometimes mistakenly called "anime" by those not familiar with the term). Adapted stories are often modified to appeal to a more mainstream market. Although not as common, original anime is sometimes adapted into manga (such as the Gundam franchise, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop and Tenchi Muyo).
Origins
Manga, literally translated, means "random (or whimsical) pictures". The word first came into common usage in the late 18th century with the publication of such works as Suzuki Kankei's "Mankaku zuihitsu" (1771) and Santo Kyoden's picturebook "Shiji no yukikai" (1798), and in the early 19th century with such works as Aikawa Minwa's "Manga hyakujo" (1814) and the celebrated Hokusai manga containing assorted drawings from the sketchbook of the famous ukiyo-e artist Hokusai.[2] However, giga (literally "funny pictures"), especially chōjū jinbutsu giga (鳥獣人物戯画,? literally "funny pictures of animals and humans"), drawn in the 12th century by various artists, contain many manga-like qualities such as emphasis on story and simple, artistic lines.
Modern manga developed from a mixture of woodblock printed books (such as the kibyôshi) and pictures (ukiyo-e) with foreign art movements. When the United States began trading with Japan, Japan entered a period of rapid modernization and globalization. Thus, they imported foreign artists to teach their students things such as line, form and color, which were never concentrated on in ukiyo-e as the idea behind the picture was normally considered more important[citation needed]. Manga in this period was known as Ponchi-e (Punch-picture) and, like its British counterpart Punch magazine, mainly depicted humor and political satire in a short, 1- or 4-picture format.
During the late Meiji period to the period before WW II, notable mangaka include Rakuten Kitazawa and Ippei Okamoto. Rakuten Kitazawa trained under Frank A. Nankivell, an Australian artist, and collaborated with Jiji Shimpo after being introduced to him by Yukichi Fukuzawa. After that, Rakuten published such famous comic strips as Tagosaku to Mokubē no Tōkyō-Kenbutsu (田吾作と杢兵衛の東京見物,? "Tagosaku and Mokube's Sightseeing in Tokyo") (1902) and Haikara Kidorō no Sippai (灰殻木戸郎の失敗,? "The Failures of Kidoro Haikara") (1902). Ippei Okamoto is the founder of Nippon Mangakai, the first cartoonist's association in Japan. His manga manbun works, such as Hito no Isshō (人の一生,? "A life of a man") (1921), were a major influence on contemporary mangaka and became prototypes of later fiction-based manga.
