The first known manga comic dates back 1902, the history of manga originating from the 13th century. Manga is Japanese comic book, in the format of an illustrated novel. Made popular by an artist called Hokusai, a master of woodblock printing. The word manga used to mean quick sketches before they became a term to mean Japanese style drawings or animated films. In recent years the word manga is being used to reference the comics. Manga refers to two Kanji words: "Man" which stands for "entertaining", "exaggerated", and "Ga" which can be interpreted as "drawing" or "image". Hence, the name Manga can be defined as a "quick sketch", "rough drawing" or a "cartoon". Compared to western books, the Japanese reading direction is reversed. The western world reads from left to right, in Japan they read from right to left.
This genre is mainly for young children, normally a adventure fantasy for kids.
Shonen refers to manga aimed at young boys to teenagers, they explore many themes such as adventure, school life, magic, fantasy and coming of age. Some of these shows often have hard themes such as truma, violence and even horror so viewer descression is advised. Some Shonen manga are;My Hero Acadamia, Bleach, One Piece, Deamon Slayer amd Jujitsu Kaisen.
Shojo is aimed at young girls and teenagers, this focuses on love and friendships.
This genre tends to be for students or young adults as they cover more realistic themes, some examples of these are; Death Note, Attack on Titan and Toyo Ghoul.
Josei is the femminine version of Seninen, covering similar realistic themes.
This particular genre is for over 18's only as it contains overly sexualised characters with explicit images and plot.
The is debate within the anime community about weather reading manga or watching anime is better or even a debate between dubbed vs subbed anime. Manga tends to be released first as it is what is used to create the anime, often times the companys that adapt the manga into anime cannot fit in everything from the source material. The result is a more condensed version that cut out some of the infomation or story thats in the source material. As long as you enjoy what you are watching or reading it doesn't really matter.
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