What's Manga?

japanese cartoons if i am right, but I don't watch them, so I could be wrong.

I am sure someone will come up with a more refined description than that hee hee

In Japan, manga is simply the word for comics and other print cartoons. In other countries it refers to cartoons that were originally published in Japan. This Wikipedia article explains it much more thoroughly than I can:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga

Manga is Japanese comics. Simple.

Like kjh5475 said, manga is the japanese word for comics, and in the US and other places, is used to refer specifically to japanese comics (similarly, anime is used to refer to cartoons originating from japan). In other words, it's comics imported from Japan. If you look at the graphic novels section in most major bookstores, you'll find whole bays of books devoted to manga--those black and white comics.

There tends to be a lot of very specific stylistic trends in most manga though (big eyes, small noses, etc), and so sometimes you'll see american comics drawn in a similar way refered to as Manga-style, or American manga. So, it can be used to refer to the origin of the comic, or the style used.

How did you moved your thread?

I presume that anime (a word I more commonly hear) means Japanese animated cartoons? There seems to be some overlap (or perhaps just confusion!) over the meanings of the words anime and magna. Furthermore, a significant amount appears to be "adult oriented" (sexual/pornographic) material, resulting in a general search-engine search likely to be "not safe for work." Or so I've heard...

MilesZ said:

How did you moved your thread?

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It's always those dastardly moderators who move threads - they always think they know just where everything goes.

Yup, anime means Japanese cartoons. Anime and manga refer to two different forms of media--cartoons and comics--but if you're talking about the style, they can be used mostly interchangably, because anime-style and manga-style are pretty much the same thing (big eyes, small noses, etc).

Also, if you're talking about a particular series, most popular series will be both a manga and an anime. Inu-Yasha started as a manga, and then had an anime made based on it; Neon Genesis Evangelion started as an anime, and had a manga made based on it--etc, etc. So someone may interchangably refer to Inu-Yasha as an anime or a manga. But the two terms do still have different meanings.

And yeah, there is a certain amount of 'hentai', or japanese animated/comic porn. The japanese are very blase about the whole thing. XD But it'll only appear in series that are geared towards it, and most series in your average bookstore are going to be normal. But it's always a good idea to tread carefully. And the internet can definately dredge up the worst of it...you can type in something totally ordinary, and somehow get tentacles and whatnot. Gah.

I think of manga as black and white comics that read backwards. Most follow the Japanese convention and read right to left instead of left to right. It can be hard to get your brain adjusted to the difference.

There are also historical manga, sports manga, and manga that recount court cases.

In Japan, everyone reads them.

Manga and anime though similar has it's differences.
The drawing techniques are similar, but different things stand out more in anime drawing than manga. E.g., eyes, facial shapes, exaggerated small bodies (chibis) and hairstyles. Of course I don't study manga except to draw it.
Sorry if this is a little big or a small I tried to find better pictures on this pc with no luck.
One is manga one is anime....can you tell which?
ETA: These were scanned in for further work, this is the drawings in their rawest media forms.

There is alot of kid friendly manga out there too. I've been reading manga and watching anime since I was little. Pokemon is an anime and a manga, for an example.
It's only recently that the USA has decided to keep the right-to left reading style. I have lots of manga from earlier years that the pages were flipped and are read left-to-right. But after things were flipped they didn't edit words in the background to fit, so it looked awkward. Like cow would read woc. I think the oddest looking flipped word I saw was 'mango' - 'ognam'

Sailor Kenshin: I love your name! *Speaking of anime and manga ^^*

I was a big anime-and-manga fan in college. (I still am, just not to the same degree.) After a while I got tired of explaining that no, anime is not porn. My grandma thought I had gone crazy or something when she saw this article in the newspaper that talked about it. ::Sigh::

I think a lot of what initially got imported into the united states was just that-- but now that it's become more popular the genres have gotten more balanced.

Hummingbird said:

There is alot of kid friendly manga out there too. I've been reading manga and watching anime since I was little. Pokemon is an anime and a manga, for an example.
It's only recently that the USA has decided to keep the right-to left reading style. I have lots of manga from earlier years that the pages were flipped and are read left-to-right. But after things were flipped they didn't edit words in the background to fit, so it looked awkward. Like cow would read woc. I think the oddest looking flipped word I saw was 'mango' - 'ognam'

Sailor Kenshin: I love your name! *Speaking of anime and manga ^^*

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Arigatou gozaimasu! ^__^