Is it taking over american comics? Is it too easy to get? Is it just plain creepy most of the time?
This has, I think, been a trend for many years now. I read ElfQuest back in the 1980s, and there were some notable similarities between Wendy Pini's style of art, and manga/anime art. And this was almost 30 years ago.
I don't read much manga myself, but I don't think it's "taking over". It is certainly having an influence, and it's quite popular for various reasons, but American and, to a lesser extent, European comics are still readily available. One reason it might seem to be overwhelming is the large number of volumes in any given series. My library carries one DragonballZ and one Yu-Gi-Oh! title, and both series have close to 30 volumes at this point. They take up a lot of space, but each volume seems to be a fairly short read.
One of the nice features of manga is the vast array of genres. There are series written strictly for boys, others just for girls, some for both genders, and offering many different subjects, from school stories to sports stories to romances to science fiction and fantasy. I see American comics moving in that direction, but I think manga has already been there for a while.
The flip thing does bother me. I hate having to reprogram myself to read a book.
This is part of my problem as well, although after a few pages I've relearned the process. The "purists" are pretty big on having the comic reprinted in as close to the original layout as possible, as I understand it.
The other problem I have is that most of the characters in any given manga series look alike to me, so it doesn't take much for me to become confused about who's doing what. Perhaps that's a cultural thing. I know that many librarians (and more than a few parents) have issues with the depictions of nudity in various manga comics. That's a cultural thing also, but still a factor in whether to invest in a particular series or not.
as for the style story telling ect....
I think the story telling in manga can be better than usual comics and i like how they keep same artest and story teller it helps you see it evolve more as they get better or just get in to it more.
This is a serious plus. One of the reasons some American superhero comics have such convoluted continuities and so many loose ends is the change in writers. If Writer B doesn't want to deal with Writer A's set-up or team roster or storyline, Writer B just goes out and does his/her own thing.
I think one of the other factors in this is the open-ended serial nature of many American comics -- there's no set direction for the plot, so writers sometimes either dash off something in order to meet the deadlines, or the story meanders its way along until someone comes up a specific direction for a story. (This seems to be the same problem with a lot of television shows, too.)
See I think the biggest problem with the Manga fans is that lots of them concider themselves JUST manga fans. Not sequential art fans and are fairly unwilling to try out american works that they'd more than likely enjoy.
That is so true.
Some people dont see how I have a few shelves of manga then shelves of normal comics like ultimate spider-man. they always say to me "how can you like both they are so diffrent" and I always say if a story is good to me and the art is good i'll read it.
I'm also aware of people who have exactly the opposite bias -- they'll only read American stuff, and won't touch manga.
Story is probably the single most important fact in choosing what to read. So I agree that either manga or American-style comics are acceptable in that regard.
One of the thing I love about anime (I assume its true about manga) is that there's usually an ending that their heading towards. There is an ultimate end, not like in america where a series is milked until its cancelled due to poor quality. I like it better when the writers choose to end it cause they can write a better overall story with a great closure to it. I would like more cartoons to take that idea.
Which is one reason I like the arc and graphic novel format American comics have gravitated toward in the last few years. Also, once you get outside the superhero genre, many graphic novels really are
novels, in that they have a beginning, middle and end; all of the character development is done within the story, and you don't need to have read anything else to understand what's going on or follow the plot.
