The difference between manga and comics

[branchandroot]

Actually, this is a lot broader than that, but that was one of the places this post started. The other was Rana's comment on a different post, words to the effect that the fan-cultures in question seem to divide themselves based only on some very fuzzy Orientalism.

I agree that fuzzy Orientalism is the most regrettably common way Western fans of similar media from different national/ethnic groups (eg comics and manga) express their differentiation. That particular expression is generally a lot of hot air, yes.

But I also think there are real fan-culture differences, touching on though not always rising directly from the mother-culture differences of the sources. This is my attempt to articulate the ones that I've seen. Warning: generalizations ahead, though not baseless ones.

ETA: To elaborate, this post is based on my own and my circle's experiences in various fandoms; unfortunately I managed to phrase things rather more generally and universally than I quite realized at the time. *rueful* None of the following is actually meant to be a Declaration Of How Fandom Is Everywhere. That said, the experience in question is not a narrow one, and I think the following is representative of a significant section of manga (and anime) fandom participants.


One major fan-culture difference is Japanophilia. Not the study of another culture, though it can in a few happy cases evolve into that, but the fad for and valorization of the surface and trappings of another culture. It makes me twitch, but there it is. However much some of us headdesk, this exoticization isn't going away anytime soon and it is a significant fan-culture difference.

Another is what we might call the discussion tropes of the fandoms. These tend to evolve from a handful of defining features in the sources where they cross with the developing tenor of the fandom culture. A recurring discussion in comic fandoms, for example, revolves around the hypersexualization of women, and how objectionable it is to reduce all the women to a set of tits and an ass. Manga fandoms do not have this discussion (ETA: I should have phrased this as something more like "this discussion or similar ones regarding the rendering of women as two-dimensional objects who exist for the benefit of men and not as fully realized characters"), not as a Known Issue, not in the open, despite an at least equal tendency to appalling objectification in the source material. Instead, the discussion usually gets pushed into private mode before it really gets going. See above, re: Japanophilia and valorization, also re: headdesking. On the other hand, the original language itself is a discussion point largely peculiar to Western manga fandoms, as will generally be the case with a translated source. It expresses as everything from language lessons to fights over transliteration systems to the eternal localization vs. "direct" translation battle, and knowledge of those debates acts as one of the shibboleths of manga fandoms.

Then there's actual style and content in the source. There has always been a certain give and take, between this particular two-set, of artistic style, and as US comics (the only ones I can speak to from experience) diversify it's becoming more evident, but there are also story tropes that are still distinct. How else, when they arise from two separate mother-cultures? To name only one, multiple genres of manga have, for decades, toyed with explicit homoeroticism in a way that comics in general do not. The genre diversity itself is another example, and the variety of story-types told in manga format. The symbolic language is, and can only remain, distinct as well. Curiously enough, such story tropes do not result in many fan-culture differences that I have seen, except insofar as manga fandom can, for example, show a more intense defensiveness, sometimes devolving into outright gay-bashing, over reading and enjoying explicit gay (only not real gay, which is a whole nother essay) romance, porn and slapstick. (ETA: I did not phrase myself with enough specificity here; I am aware of the voluble gay-bashing in comics fandoms. What I refer to is the particular "screw for my enjoyment while I deny you the right to live" double-mindedness that shows up among fen who are trying to have their cake and bash it too. The key word, here, is defensiveness.) The different story tropes I would put down as a distinction between the sources, but not one that manifests much in fandom culture outside of the actual preference for the style and content of one group of sources or another.


Now, what I would be interested to know is: do the same kinds of differences show up in the Western fandoms of Western and Asian TV? Or of Western bands and Asian bands? And do they manifest in gaming fandoms? That last especially interests me, since the game sources seem to be the most self-aware of the trans-Pacific trade.

ETA: As per suggestion, I would like to point out that I have not been present for the bulk of wrangler discussions on associated issues. These are thoughts going off in a different (somewhat) direction, so please to be not be bringing other fights in here. I am an unaligned polity.

ETA some more: Will not be replying to further comments on this one because work has descended for the term. Talk among yourselves if you like.

Comments

[zombiecookie]

Neither comic fans nor manga (or anime and cartoon) fans are really going to stand for being shoved together and there are very good and valid reasons why they shouldn't be (which you cover very well), but seperating them completely, seems very unfair to me, /especially/ if nothing else is going to be handled that way. It continues to foster the animosity that some members of both groups have for each other.

There are also cases where it's not so clear cut where fan stuff based on a specific work would go. What is someone did a fan work based on the X-men manga? Would it get separated from the rest of the X-men stuff, or would it be allowed with the comics? What about OEL manga? Would those type of works get shunted to one or the other, or would it be handled on a case by case basis?

I like the idea of things being better separated, either through using small categories or subcategories withing larger categories. At the very least it would make the manga/comic distinction stick out like less of a sore thumb. I've never seen anything anything else divided purely by country of origin like that, even for video games where the divide between JRPG fans and western game fans can be just as big.

Believe it or not, I actually had a bigger comment written about this. As a fan of manga and comics the hard distinction between the two has always bugged me. People from both sides have given me flack for liking both, even when they know nothing about the particular series that I like.

As an after thought, there are some differences between Western and Asian TV fandoms, but most of that seems to come from the fact that many of the stars of Asian TV shows are 'entertainers' or 'musicians', the fandoms of some Asian TV shows aren't really TV fandoms at all, but are really a subsection of a music fandom.

[branchandroot]

*nods* Personally I'm all about doing it across the board, especially if the fan-cultures are distinct all over. Which, really, seems extremely likely to me.

*thoughtful* The "multiple media in multiple locations" is one that I think needs a bit of coding work to fix, actually. I think that many fans would be inclined, when writing different continuities /and/ different media to note that in some way. Sometimes in the tags and sometimes in how they enter the fandom name itself. So there might wind up being a fandom "X-men (manga)" in whatever location anime/manga wind up. But I think it would be a very good thing if clicking on the "X-men" fandom anywhere called up the results of /all/ the 'different' entered fandoms, possibly filterable by media/fandom difference if such exists. (did that make sense?)

Anyway! Interesting info about the TV fandoms. Given what I do know about the "idol" production machinery that doesn't surprise me, I suppose.

[zombiecookie]

That makes a lot sense of actually. It would take more work to set up, but I think in the long run it would make things much more friendly.

I think it's sort of sad that many newer big archives are just following nearly the exact format that the older ones have used. (I'm very fond of the way your archive is set up, but I don't know how well it would work with a huge archive) AO3 is trying to do some interesting things with the tags, but it really seems like baby steps from the standard fic archive format to me. I guess for something huge like that it's better to keep to something people are more familiar with, at least on the surface anyway.

[branchandroot]

*wry* Yeah, mine works pretty much because it's a single-author archive, to which I have added a few guests. And even then, I'm the one who does the metadata for them. I do think there are some good things, in terms of category and tag schema, that AO3 might take from WordPress, though, and I've already suggested making it possible to make one series the "child" of another, so we can have sub-arcs inside a big project.

There's always that tug of war, isn't there? Between the Really Cool New things we can do as database and metadata coding progresses and people's natural desire to stick with what they already know.

[zombiecookie]

It's the nature of people to stay with what they know. And for something like AO3 it's not necessarily wrong to do so. I don't know of anything they can do that is going get rid of all the problems even though I may feel the basic fic archive format is not very user friendly and dated, at least people are familiar with it's quirks.

I'm very interested in how AO3 ends up handling tags. It's their big bid for user friendliness, but the more I think about what they're trying to do the more I can't help but think they're going to end up with a huge mess. Linking user created tags like that is great in theory, but people in general are horrible about being consistent with their tags.

[azurite]

Sorry to barge in, but I've always found FFnet's system--with a category to describe the media and then sometimes a "Universe" for those that exist in multiple media--confusing, and think using tags or another system for defining the universe best, and a fandom can be multi-listed.

For example, Yu-Gi-Oh! started as a manga, became an anime (twice), then several video games...it could technically fall under all of those media categories, as someone can write fic for all of them, never knowing about the others, or someone could write something taking place in one universe and inspired partially by another...I don't know, it's pretty fuzzy and I think having more options (via tags, for example) makes this whole argument a LOT less confusing for the author.

[zombiecookie]

I hate FFnet's system, because you really do have to look /everywhere/ to find things.

They've both a mess when it comes to figuring out exactly where something goes. There are a few things that could be done behind the scenes to link an anime, manga or whatever series that the authors would never have to worry about. Tags is one way to do it. I'd prefer to have a 'universe' category that covered everything. In my dream archive an author could upload a story to 'Yu-Gi-Oh! (Manga)' and it would automaticly be listed under 'Yu-Gi-Oh! (Universe)' at the same time. Someone looking for the fic would be able to find it under the manga or universe category and all fandoms that had a 'universe' category would have link to it somewhere.

It is really too late for me to be thinking about this. Hopefully I made sense.

[erinptah]

In my dream archive an author could upload a story to 'Yu-Gi-Oh! (Manga)' and it would automaticly be listed under 'Yu-Gi-Oh! (Universe)' at the same time.

Wikipedia refers to the same concept as a "metaseries" (the first redirect for Sailor Moon, as I recall, refers to the metaseries), so I think you're on to something.

[azurite]

I think that makes perfect sense and would be a part of my dream archive, too! I think the problem lies in simplifying that main page navigation: does it really need to be done for folks browsing the archive, trying to lump fandoms together in some form, or is it possible to just list ALL the universes somehow--maybe alphabetically (but even then, what do you do for fandoms like Fushigi Yuugi--some people might look for it under F, but others, knowing the title Mysterious Play, might look under M? Wiki lets you create redirects for "commonly mistaken terms" or "names for the same thing," but it still involves creating a database entry and a redirect for "the other thing.")

[branchandroot]

Yeah, whatever happens, the code and hardware are both going to need to be optimized for a really heavy usage of the database. I can't see any way around that while still keeping this usable.