Adult manga

The storyline is, of course, more adult-oriented than illustrated books of a similar kind in many areas of the world. Many tourists may initially be quite surprised to look over at what someone sitting next to them on a train may be skimming through on their way home. This adult storyline certainly is not just for the male gender, and women may have their own genre of adult Manga to choose from.

Manga, which translates as whimsical pictures, is documented as having its modern origins in the era of Japanese occupation by allied forces, after WWII, during the years 1945-1952. While the cultural influences from the West during those times were obviously a major factor in inspiring modern Manga, there were also many amazing classical Japanese artists who inspired this art form. Classical art known as Ukiyo-e, in particular, is likely responsible for much of the Manga style. It is even possible that the art form helped to shape western comic artists like Vincent Van Gogh. This kind of cross pollination is an amazing discovery that comes from the study of modern art.

When reading or flipping through your first Manga, it may be initially somewhat perplexing as to what order a story should be read in. Japanese books actually open to the left and the pages are to be read from top to bottom and right to left. One of the nice things about Manga, especially for those studying the Japanese language, is that many will include small characters, known as Furigana, next to the more complex characters. Furigana are written in the simpler Japanese scripts containing less than 100 characters and are a great way to learn to read the 2000 basic Kanji characters that are generally accepted as the most common ones for the purpose of literacy.