Rakuda Ginza

Manga is a highly regarded art form in Japan. Manga artists are highly respected not only for their skill but also for their imagination and creativity.

To draw manga, one would have to study the characteristics of manga images. Most people who wants to learn how to draw manga are usually attracted to some characters in a manga series. Without knowing it, they’re not only attracted to the physical form of the manga character, they’re also drawn to the personality of the character.

Manga pictures are not hard to draw once you understand its basic characteristics. And here they are.

Firstly, manga characters are adorable looking. This cuteness is defined by extremely large eyes, an almond shaped face, and a very small mouth. In fact, the faces of manga characters can look very similar, and they’re differentiated mostly by their elaborate hair, dressing and accessories.

The manga face is made up of very basic shapes. So there’s very little I can recommend here except to practice, practice, practice. If you can master drawing one manga face well, you’ll be able to draw other manga faces as well.

The key here is to be able to capture the elaborate hair. Its not uncommon to see manga characters with long hair. Many fine lines are required to draw a fine head of hair, so do pick a sharp drawing tool for this purpose.

The dressing and accessories of a manga character is a statement of who the character is. So do not ignore these fine details. Spiritual characters often have “floating” pieces of cloth around them (e.g. cloak, scarf, etc).  Read more... (318 words, estimated 1:16 mins reading time)

While the animated film has had a great deal of advancement in the Western part of the world it has been highly influential to Japanese entertainment as well. Manga anime films have been around for as long as Western animated films. These films, which include animation inspired by manga and can be based on anime productions in many cases, have been popular not only in Japanese entertainment but also for other parts of the world.

In 1945 Mitsuyo Seo was commissioned by the Imperial Japanese Navy to create the film Momotaro’s Divine Sea Warriors. This was Japan’s first full length manga anime film. This was used as a means of propaganda for the Japanese. It is highly believed that this film was heavily inspired by the 1940 Western animated film Fantasia.

Much of this industry was put on hold during the occupation of Japan by the United States. It would eventually resume in 1958 with Toei Animation’s Tale of the White Serpent. This and other films from Japan around this time are considered to be highly influenced by the Walt Disney Company’s productions. However, in 1968 Isao Takahata’s Hols: Prince of the Sun changed the pattern in that the film emphasized the director bringing one’s ideas to animation instead of using certain types of inspirations.

The 1984 Hayao Miyazaki film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was important to the advancement of this type of film. Released in North America as Warriors of the Wind, this film was noted not only for its amazing animation but also for its strong messages of environmentalism. This helped to not only influence this form of Japanese entertainment to incorporate real life concerns but also to try and make anime films more lavish.

In the 1980s Katsuhiro Otomo created the successful manga series Akira. In 1988 he adapted it into a highly successful manga anime film. While this film was highly popular outside of Japan it was a commercial flop in Japan because of its incredibly high budget. This was the same for other manga anime films of the 1980s in that they worked with trying to be more lavish in production.  Read more... (893 words, 1 image, estimated 3:34 mins reading time)

Although the artwork is cartoon style, Anime is much more than just a “cartoon” to its fans. While traditional cartoons in the United States are either humorous, or simplistic “good versus evil” storylines, the typical Japanese anime series offers characters who evolve as the series moves along and deals with complex real-life issues, such as friendship, love, loss, even the reality and acceptance of death.

Japanese Anime truely is an art, with its wonderful plots and beautifully drawn pictures. Anime is entirely about movement between states of being, whether fast or slow. The ‘being’ of a person, which can be one’s soul, mind, blood-line, weapon, limb or organ, is always caught in various stages of transition.

I love the anime characters and their development, particularly, the way each of them possesses multiple personalities, motivations and attitudes. It creates what comes close to the complexity of true human relationships, very touching and memorable.

Anime provides an escape to a wonderous world so beautiful and amazing you wonder how the artist created such a place and conceived the charaters that capture our hearts and keep us impatiently awaiting the next episode’s release.

Anime is doing what every artistic medium strives to achieve, move you. Anime characters with their spiky hair and huge expressive eyes hold our attention, we cannot help but respond to the language and expression conveyed through their eyes.

Japanese anime artists are eternally searching for the cutest little creature they can possible come up with, and one of the newer characters is Mamegoma, a “bean seal.” I have no idea what that means but he is an adorable little critter!

Anime may also be adapted into live action television programs, available on media such as movies, DVD, video games, soundtracks, music, MP3, and all audio formats for mobile devices.  Read more... (733 words, estimated 2:56 mins reading time)

Of Japanese comics (known better as manga) fans grows daily among both men and women. Unlike American comics mostly targeting men, manga has a lot of sub-genres with some addressing exclusively women of various ages.

A manga is usually created by one (often with assistants) drawing a comics and writing texts. However there’s also group activity like the Clamp band, still a normal team is 3-4 people at most. Professional manga is next to amateur manga – doujinshi (dojinshi). The following is mostly about professional manga.

A popular genre is shojo (shoujo) manga literally meaning a young girl. So it targets women audience aged 10 to 18. Shojo manga was first created primarily by men but then many female writers have sprung since about 1969.

Shojo manga is multi-genre and -topic including historical drama and science fiction. It often describes romance and emotions pertaining specifically to girls.

Many publishing houses specialize in this type of manga – Shueish with Ribon monthly magazine, Kodansha with Nakayoshi magazine and others. Most series were first printed in such magazines and then serialized.

* Hot Gimmick by Miki Aihara

* Fruits Basket by Natsuki Takaya

* Peach Girl: Change of Heart by Miwa Ueda

* Hana-Kimi: For You in Full Blossom by Hisaya Nakajo

* Love Hina by Ken Akamatsu, Anita Sengupta

* Kare First Love by Kaho Miyasaka

* Doubt by Kaneyoshi Izumi

* Happy Hustle High by Rie Takada

* The Wallflower by Tomoko Hayakawa

* Beauty is the Beast by Tomo Matsumoto

A sub-genre of Japanese fantasy anime and manga called magical girls (maho shojo) tells about girls with superhuman abilities forced to fight evil and protect the Earth. Stories with magic and a transformation like Full Moon wo Sagashite often feature girls with a secret identity. Magical girls known in Japan as majokko (witch girl) generally don’t refer to modern magical girl anime first of which was Sally, the Witch in 1966. This genre counts hundreds of stories. Here’re just some except the ones mentioned before:  Read more... (691 words, estimated 2:46 mins reading time)

Manga is Japanese for Comic Book. It is similar to the comic book in the western countries but is usually in black and white. Western countries’ comic books are often colored, while mangas are black and white. Another point of difference is that you read a manga from right to left and from the back of the book to the front. Mangas are very popular even now and the main reason for that might be anime.

Anime is the Japanese form of animation. It is the most popular TV show and movie that came from Japan. What people might not know about anime is that most of the anime shows are derived from mangas.

This is probably why Mangas are popular. An anime episode takes too long to be seen on TV, since each episode is usually shown once a week. On mangas, you can read the continuation of the story, and at the same time, see the difference between the manga and the anime version.

If you are a fan of mangas, then you probably want to have a copy of your favorite manga. There are already translated versions of the most popular mangas that you can buy from a store. But if your favorite manga is not among the ones sold, you can still enjoy reading the manga from the Internet.

There are many websites that allow you to read translated manga. A website such as OneManga.com has hundreds of mangas ready to be read online. But if you can’t stay online for too long, or if you want to download and print the manga, you can look for a website that offers manga download.

Downloading a manga from the Internet could be a hassle if you do not know where to go. So here are some methods that you can do to get a download:  Read more... (562 words, estimated 2:15 mins reading time)