Culture in Eastern Asia: Anime and Manga

Manga is read from right to left.

Anime and Manga is an incredibly popular form of entertainment that originated in Japan and has since become a large part of Japanese society and culture. Modern day manga can be defined as Japanese styled comic, which originated during the mid-1900s. The popularity of manga in Japan, and the rest of the world, has since ballooned. Today, there is a huge domestic industry for manga, and increasingly so internationally. In Japan, people of both genders and any age read manga as a form of entertainment. The range of genres in manga is very diverse, ranging from history to futuristic science fiction and from teenage romance to profound themes about life. Manga are broadly separated into four categories according to the target audience: boys, girls, youths and matured. Manga magazines, such as “Shonen Jump” can be commonly found in bookstores, bookstands and convenience stores all across Japan. When a manga series becomes popular enough, it may be made into an anime - Japanese styled animation.

Anime is an abbreviation of the word “animation,” and is use by the Japanese to refer to all types of animation, while being used to refer to Japanese animation by those outside of Japan. Anime dates back to the birth of Japan’s own film industry in the early 1900s, and has emerged as one of Japan’s major cultural forces over the past century. However, it wasn’t until after WWII, in 1948, that the first modern Japanese animation production company, one devoted to entertainment, came into being: Toei, with their first theatrical features were explicitly in the vein of Walt Disney’s films. Eventually anime spread into the west in 1963, with the first major Japanese anime export to the U.S.: Astro Boy, adapted from Osamu Tezuka’s manga about a robot boy with super-powers. Anime eventually became a popular form of entertainment with world famous examples such as “Dragonball", "Sailor Moon", "Pokemon" and "One Piece".

The popularity of manga and anime in Japan has led to the establishment of many related attractions and places of interest, such as manga cafés, maid cafés and conventions. In Tokyo, some of the world's largest anime and manga events are held annually.