Lately I decided to get into manga. Initially I wanted to get back into watching anime, but I felt like it would be too much of a time-sink. And since I make reading a priority in my life anyway, I decided that I’d much rather fit manga into my life than anime.
I’m currently reading three manga series’, including: Monster by Naoki Urasawa, Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata, and Gangsta: Cursed by Syuhei Kamo. While tearing through these manga series’, I made three observations that have hooked on them.
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The depth of storytelling
This is not to discredit comic writers from the western world, as I’ve read some incredible graphic novels over the years. But something I’ve found with manga writers is that the stories they tell are so layered. And because they go so deep with their stories, they’re able to spring incredible twists on the reader that feel authentic.
While some graphic novels read as though the writers are making things up volume by volume, mangas tend to feel as though the writer has mapped out every single instance of the story ahead of time. This may not actually be the case, but the stories are so well plotted that it feels that way. I also find myself being on the edge of my seat and talking out loud while reading, something I never do with books or comics.
Perfect example: in Death Note—(small spoiler alert)—when L’s task force is about to track down Higuchi, I was yelling the entire time because I knew L was about to learn all about the notebook.
What’s even more interesting about this, is that the book is essentially making me side with the wrong-doers in the story.
Light Yagami can be considered both the protagonist and the villain in the story, and that’s because these characters have so much depth that it creates a gray area on whether they’re right or wrong.
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Manga artists can do so much with so little
One of the most standout things about manga—besides the fact that you read it from the opposite way that you’d read a western comic—is that they have no colour. The books are inked completely in black and white…with maybe a few pages in each book having actual colour (including the front and back covers).
This is because it saves time and expense for the manga creators. Colourists are extremely expensive to hire, and the work can take months. So in order to get the stories to the readers faster, it was decided long ago that manga creators would ship their work in black and white.
But this in no way reduces the quality of the work. In many cases, it shows the true talent of the artist as they are able to do so much with so little. You could make a case for some of the artists that the black and white makes their work even more detailed. The way they shade the illustrations to account for the lack of colour is pretty incredible. And having no colour also makes them get more creative in terms of how they illustrate some elements where colour would be important.
To put it simply, the black and white manga style has become its own unique artstyle. And it has garnered respect globally, even though it was originally done to cut time and costs. And even with the lack of colour, artists are still able to develop their own distinguishable styles.
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Manga has darker stories
I love me some grim and gritty storytelling, and it seems that Japanese stories are grimer and introspective by nature. Both Monster and Death Note have shown me just how casually dark manga stories can get.
For a book with young adults, Death Note has some weighty subject matter that involves humans having the power to decide people’s mortality.
And in Gangsta: Cursed, the main character Marco Adriano has to battle with the question of whether it’s morally okay to murder Twilights, even if they are monsters disguised as people. These Twighlights never fight back or provoke humans, but the Cristiano Family believes that the Twilights must be slaughtered on-sight.
Death is a part of western comics also, but I’ve never seen these themes so casually embedded into the story, especially when it concerns younger characters. And as twisted as it may sound, I kind of enjoy these darker themes with morally gray areas. (I’m not a psychopath, I promise.)
What do you love about manga?
If you’re reading this and you also have a love of manga, please share what you love about them in the comments. Also, feel free to recommend some more manga series’ to a new reader like myself….
