by James Shimoda

Created on: June 07, 2009   Last Updated: June 14, 2009

In our current age, there are two things from Japan that have made an impact on the U.S. Unfortunately, I'm not referring to the systems, PS3 and Wii, but rather another form of media: Anime and Manga. The two terms are rather close together, but there not exactly the same thing.

Manga is a Japanese term for comic. These mangas come in various forms, rather made for certain age groups. At the simplest level, mangas are written for either boys or girls. If you want to a little more technical, mangas for both gender vary because they are written for a certain age group. The differences between boy and girl mangas are rather various. One of the easiest to spot is the amount of action that occurs in the story. If you can see girls in revealing situations, blood flying, body parts flying, swearing, and other tough stuff, the odds are you're reading a boy's comic. Girls can be a little harder to tell because some of their comics do have action occurring. The only definite sign for girl comics is the plot revolves around love. But keep in mind that boy mangas can contain love too.

Anime is a Japanese term for cartoon. The word probably comes from the word animation. Anyway, anime has some rather interesting characteristics. I would say that most Animes are based on mangas. Animes usually follow the storylines of the manga, but sometimes they'll create their own storylines and use the characters from the manga. Sometimes the anime catches up too fast with the manga and thus the animators have to come up with an original storyline until the manga has started up again. In any case, animes can be short or long when you compare the number of episodes. Some animes could be 10 episodes while other go into the 100s. As with manga, there are boy themed and girl themed anime. From my experience in the U.S., boy themed animes tend to have better success than girl themed animes.

So now comes the question of which is better:anime or manga? In truth both are good. Neither are better than the other because they're pros and cons are about the same. Although I said that most animes are based on mangas, there are still mangas that have never been animated. So the only way to enjoy them is to read them. It's a similar case with Anime although some publishers try to make alternate stories of the anime in a manga form. It doesn't really work out in my opinion. In some cases, the drawing style in the anime doesn't match with the manga and vice versa. So it becomes harder to enjoy when the characters look ugly. The manga can be better than anime because they'll explain some of the background of the story better than the anime would. However, sometimes it's better to keep the story simple because it would become boring by adding in a lot of additional details. The mangas usually have more gory or sexual details in there, but it can't replace the animation of fights that occur in the anime. Anime also have the ability to enhance the humor of the manga by making the characters do funny stunts. Something manga cannot do well since it has a set amount of panels.

So if you want to get through a story quickly, then read the manga. On the other hand, if you want to see some cool fights or the behavior of the characters, then watch the anime. if you can't decide and have lots of time, do both.

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