5by8, #10: Getting Inside
originally written for and posted on Comicsnob.com [Dec ’06 – May ’08]
Let’s see if we can figure out why manga is so popular.
Well, that’s a big, complicated, tangled issue. Let’s step back from that particular Gordian knot and try to isolate just one thread of the phenomenon, and see how it appeals to just one segment of the manga market.
Just one segment, though a large one and important one: Teenagers, from say 12 on (up to and including all the twenty-something manga fans in college who refuse to grow up.)
What are the kids getting out of manga? What are they getting that convinces them to pay $8 or $10 (and up) for each book in a series that can run into 20 or more volumes? (I’ll wait while you and some publishing executives do that math.)
A big chunk of the Japanese market and an even larger percentage of American licensed titles are teen-specific, or at least have a teen appeal. American comics used to have the same draw to the same demographic, but over the years comics changed and somewhere along the line, they lost the kids.
(Not all of the kids. A few of us got bit by the bug along the way. Now we run comic shops, or post columns and reviews on comics to the internet)
Comics have often appealed to kids of an impressionable age because they are fantasy. We don’t just read about Superman, we want to be Superman [link goes to a relevant PVP strip]. Reading about superheroes is a lot of fun, and someone could probably make a game (or a diagnostic tool) out of which heroes and which powers you like, and what that says about you.
As we get a little older, we’ll move on from childish power fantasies and look for something deeper in our heroes, more troubled perhaps… The Bruce Wayne who still carries the scars of the 8-year-old orphan inside, the Peter Parker who is motivated (and haunted) by his failure to save his Uncle Ben, The X-men: who are almost like a DSM-IV of teenage angst made flesh in all it’s varied forms and misery.
It was a great run. There are some great stories. And some of the DC and Marvel comics are still good today, though they are aimed at a mature (well, older) audience and seem to lack some of the fun of Bob’s Blast from the Past titles. It’s all so… grim.
Into this blasted landscape where incipient psychoses battle demons from our collective id, enter: Hello Kitty ! OK, so I’m being sarcastic, but the point is valid: Here’s a graphic iconography that is about as far from American Superhero Comics of the late 80s as we can get.
There were other invaders from this foreign land: Astro Boy (for the real manga-geezers out there), Speed Racer, Robotech… it looked different from the other cartoons out there (70s era Superfriends, anyone?) and maybe we couldn’t say why, but we liked it. What no one could know then was that these programs were only the thin end of the wedge, eventually bringing a flood of Japanese visual culture Stateside.
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Comics continues it’s long march into plastic-wrapped, lovingly-catalogued, and boxed obscurity in Mom’s basement, as the fanboys get a little older each year. The kids don’t want to read about Dad’s superheroes anymore. They’re looking for something new, something they can relate to, a comic of their own.
In the same way that a generation saw troubled costumed heroes as a metaphor for their own struggles into adolescence and adulthood, the pre-teens and teens of today are also looking for role models. It’s a different sort of mental game though. Where a fan of Capt. Superhero has to read symbols and draw analogies between their idol and themselves, kids today can open up just about any manga on the shelf and read about other kids.
I’m going to make up a statistic: 90% of the main characters in the manga currently on the shelves, are teens. At most, they’re 20. (The college ronin attending cram school, still trying to pass the entrance exams into the institution of their choice — on the very edge, but not an “adult”).
Assassins, spies, and detectives; fantasy mercenaries, princes, and priestesses; sci-fi pilots, aliens, and space pirates; mystics, witches, and psychics; rock stars, actors, and idols; and every last one of them is 17. or 15. or younger. And the lead character isn’t even anything special: just some average joe or plain jane, who gets dragged from the boring but comfortable rut of high school into the overwhelming flow of events, only to discover hidden reserves of strength and determination, the true meaning of friendship and loyalty, and perhaps even love etc. etc. etc.
If I get into too much more detail, I’ll be outlining my own manga plot.
The point of all these teens in manga is that the kids reading manga will directly identify with the main character. The kid-in-the-comic starts out at the bottom, but tries really hard, and magical things happen.
“I could do that!”
The lead in shoujo isn’t the most beautiful girl in school; that minx is the villain! The lead is a average-but-cute-but-average girl who somehow lands the hottest guy in three prefectures. The lead in shonen isn’t the 101-year old Master, or the 30-something teacher, it’s the 13-year old kid with a chip on his shoulder but no real skill to back it up… yet.
Manga heroes are merely heroes. They aren’t often “super” or even very heroic yet, though they may end up as something extraordinary after the trials of the story. Most kids will easily identify with their emotions, concerns, and struggles… and their potential. A lot of manga can be really self-affirming that way. (If one can get over the manga-geekiness-factor. Manga in moderation, I guess we should say.)
How much do kids identify with the characters? Again, I have no statistical evidence, but have you seen the number of cosplayers at conventions recently? There is a strong circumstantial case building there.
I often use “manga-generic” as an insult, implying that the art or characterisation is somehow below par. Getting the audience to identify with your main character is important, though, so maybe I should back off a bit. These punks are generic on purpose, the everyman everyteen that the reader relates to, the doorway for a kid to enter a whole new universe.
