Anime/Manga - Discuss Japanese cartoons and comics here; NO CULTURE WAR DOOMPOSTING!

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millais said:
It seems to me that most of American and European comics are in color, with many where a "colorist" is given equal credit with the writer and inker as a separate staff position.
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I believe mainstream western comics are more of an "assembly line" operation, where the writing, the pencils, the inking, the lettering, and the colouring are often all done by separate people who specialize in those specific tasks, whereas a lot of mainstream manga artists do everything themselves or maybe with the help of one or two assistants for the A-list titles, and some series are on a weekly or biweekly schedule, so colouring anything except tankoubon (paperback book collections) covers and the occasional splash page would be asking too much of them when Japanese readers generally don't even expect manga to be coloured.
 
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sasazuka said:
I believe mainstream western comics are more of an "assembly line" operation, where the writing, the pencils, the inking, the lettering, and the colouring are often all done by separate people who specialize in those specific tasks, whereas a lot of mainstream manga artists do everything themselves or maybe with the help of one or two assistants for the A-list titles, and some series are on a weekly or biweekly schedule, so colouring anything except tankubon (paperback book collections) covers and the occasional splash page would be asking too much of them when Japanese readers generally don't even expect manga to be coloured.
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So in Japanese manga, one person does all the illustration on top of the writing of the story? That seems like a tough system.
 
gachacunt said:
I'd like to watch more early - mid 2000s anime, but i'm not sure where to start. What do you guys recommend?
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Don't know what you've seen, so I'm just going to go through my list and pull some things out:

Scrapped Princess
Monster
Fullmetal Alchemist (both series)
Samurai Champloo
Fruits Basket
Galaxy Angel (in the same vein as Cromartie High as a widget series)
Nurse Witch Komugi-chan
Princess Tutu
Astro Boy 2003
Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
Kino's Journey
Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo
Elfen Lied
Solty Rei
Ultimate Muscle
Mushishi
Higurashi no Naku Koro ni
Death Note
Magical Witch Punie-chan (2006 to 2007 OVA, but still recommend it)

I find the early-to-mid 2000s to be awkward in the art department, personally, but there's still a lot of enjoyable shows to be had from that era. Perhaps a few of those will be what you're looking for.
 
millais said:
So in Japanese manga, one person does all the illustration on top of the writing of the story? That seems like a tough system.
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Sometimes you get a separate writer and artists, like with WataMote (a.k.a. No Matter How I Look At It, It's You Guys' Fault I'm Not Popular) creators Nico Tanigawa (the pen name for a duo of a male writer and a female artist), though many mangaka do everything themselves. It's more work but, on the other hand, mangaka generally have more artistic freedom compared to, say, Marvel or DC writers and artists.
 
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millais said:
That seems like a tough system.
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But it allows for a lot more control over what goes into a comic.

In America, newspaper comics can be a 1-person production too. Like Calvin and Hobbes. Then again, they're just expected to draw a few panels a day and the weekly Sunday strip.

Are there newspaper comics in Japan?
 
I don't get it. I don't think it's a big detriment when my favorite bande-desinee illustrator and writer duos occasionally split up to do a project with others. Sometimes it's even an improvement if they get a better illustrator on board to make an otherwise unexceptional story more visually engaging.
 
millais said:
How come American comics and European bande-desinee are always in color but Japanese manga is in black-and-white? Does Japan have a publishing cycle that is too accelerated to be able to accommodate addition of color, or is it a cost-savings decision?
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Not always. European (or at least Swedish and French) Donald Duck pocket books published in the 1970s/early 1980s were either entirely in black and white or in black and white every two pages.
 
So I recently took the plunge and decided to rewatch Naruto for the first time in a long while for nostalgia's sake, after putting it off for so long.

I forgot how much I liked Naruto Part I, especially the early episodes. I feel like I'm 12 years old and it's 2005 all over again.

Naruto Shippuden went on for too damn long, even if you put filler aside that show was too fucking long.
 
millais said:
How come American comics and European bande-desinee are always in color but Japanese manga is in black-and-white? Does Japan have a publishing cycle that is too accelerated to be able to accommodate addition of color, or is it a cost-savings decision?
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I believe that has to do with both. In Japan, comicbooks are a product for everyday use, something people read on train rides or the toilet, most of them are published in magazines made of very cheap paper, using colour and better paper would rise the costs to high. And as other users mentioned here often only one person writes and draws a story so there is no time to colourise it, too.

American comicbooks use colour and quality paper, yet they are often ludicrously overprized in my view. Four bucks for a book with 24 pages which means half an hour of entertainment, seriously?!?!

Besides, why do so many English-speaking people call comics from Europe "bandes dessinées" and the Japanese ones "manga"? They are comics or graphic novels, as some prefer to say, too.
 
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Webby's Boyfriend said:
Besides, why do so many English-speaking people call comics from Europe "bandes dessinées" and the Japanese ones "manga"? They are comics or graphic novels, as some prefer to say, too.
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"bandes dessinées" is peak autism. Even a few hours away from France, we just call Belgian/French comics "comics". And even in France they don't say "bandes dessinées" - they just abbreviate it to BD.
 
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