Not being able to read some of my feeds during the weekend caused me to react late about some things about this whole Global Manga rantage. The need to blog about the topic is almost ‘monumental’. In history, it is often in rabid rants and rages that people actually realize that they have to formalize something. Hence, our friend’s rantage provoked some thoughts which eventually lead to the beginning of the Global Manga Manifesto. It is an attempt to conceptualize, maybe someday formalize a burgeoning movement in the comic industry. Perhaps someday, it’ll be something that comic historians might check or follow.
To make this whole discussion more ‘global’, the issue has also been opened among the Filipino comic enthusiasts around the year 2000. During that time, a crew of manga enthusiasts published a ‘monthly’ comic called Culture Crash. It was a brave attempt in trying to mix their manga influences and American influences together. Local comic artists considered this as unoriginal because they just copied manga style. The truth is, for a manga reader, only a few elements of it really reminded readers of manga (usually just in the character design and setting) but everything else seems to be a hodgepodge of American and maybe even Filipino comic art. It is something beyond the pre-conceived notion of a manga but rather an evolved art form that utilizes some manga elements. Perhaps it is in this same notion that the term global manga has been created.
The thing I’d like to question is the technicality on the use of the word global and manga together. I was discussing with a friend on the issue and she and I are a bit confused with the whole idea. Global manga is such a colloquial term among foreign manga enthusiasts that it is indeed a proper terminology for manga-styled comics published outside of Japan. However, I somehow feel conflicted, maybe confused, that somehow Japan doesn’t seem to be included in this global manga effort. If Japanese manga is manga, and global manga is ‘distinct and not isolated from Japanese manga’, then it kind of refutes the idea that it is global, meaning Japanese manga should be a part as well as integral to this whole global manga movement. Any comic that is ‘distinct and not isolated from Japanese manga’ created and published in Japan should rightfully be a part of this movement.
But how does the West define Japanese manga and its correlations? How do you know when a drawing of global manga is distinct already from what is out there? Is Maruo Suehiro still a manga or a global manga? How can you say that Elmer Damaso’s Speed Racer be different from how Yellow Tanabe draws Kekkaishi? Isn’t the mere mention of global and manga a complete contradiction already? If global is encompassing, then manga is limiting. Am I right in being confused here?
I think that if they are included, they are part in part a source or a point of reference, but they don’t feel like they’re part of this genre. Unless I maybe misreading it, either the definition of global manga is really just manga created outside of Japan by non-Japanese people, maybe something closer to ‘外漫画’ or it really is just an overcomplicated politicized definition of manga. Because from my understanding, manga has always been global in its essence. The only thing that made manga ‘manga’ is the fact that it’s in the Japanese language, published in Japan, and has a Japanese perspective. In the end, like others, it’s just a comic, which in Japan, they call ‘manga’. The reason why we appreciate manga today is the fact that it is global in terms of art, style, theme, and narration.
Manga, as I have understood it, has been global from the very beginning. The art itself is an evolution from the infusion of classical Japanese art forms such as Toba-E and Ukiyo-E with editorial comics, and later on the popular comic as we know it. Many scholars also recognize that even Osamu Tezuka has taken inspiration from Western cartoonists. In its earliest commercialized conception, it has been very global with its whole east and west concoction. You even have the likes of Jiro Taniguchi who pushed the range of manga art closer to its French relative, the bande dessinee? The blog SameHat! SameHat! is a reminder of how diverse the genre of manga can be that even Japanese artists no longer fall on what is easily considered as manga. These are artworks ‘distinct but not isolated’ from its Japanese form. In Japan, these are still called manga. English-published studies of manga still call these works mangas. Should we then start calling these ‘Global manga’ as well?
For me, why not just call it manga if you really want to be considered a part of it? I mean it is, in the end, an effort to attain the style, right? Or if you feel that you are a step higher or a far deviation from manga, just ‘something something’ graphic novels? Or Manga-styled comics? Maybe a new name like ‘Mangaism’. Anything else but global manga, because it creates ironies upon ironies.
The concept of global manga confuses the manga nut in me. I think if people just looked back in Manga! Manga! and more manga history books and perhaps read older mangas and compare it with the new mangas, they will see and understand that the ‘global’ characteristics of manga. It’s been there, before people even thought of drawing comics in the same style as mangas.
Definitions are a pain. Unless the lines are clearly marked, this quest for a Global Manga Manifesto will be a little troubling. But as the Japanese put it… ganbatte ne. ^^v These ‘global mangas’ definitely need a voice but I believe they should start shaping a truly distinct identity.
For me, honestly, some of these ‘global mangas’ no longer needs to be called ‘global mangas’. You guys are doing a great job that you can already merit the word mangas itself. I think that’s part in part why the International Manga Competition was named International Manga Competition and not International Global Manga Competition. You are part of the art.
