Author discovers manga. I’m not very different from him, except I probably gave it a lot more thought. You really can’t talk about TV anime in the 21st century without talking about manga, after all. The problem for me is that there are too much stuff I enjoy about anime that’s absent in manga. My main gateway into anime has been seiyuu idols, OP/ED themes and soundtrack music. I still remember the one summer where I listened to Macross Plus soundtracks like a bijillion times. Direction and cinematography may overlap with paneling and framing the shot in manga but it’s not exactly enough to “get” it on from one format to another, even if a sharp-eyed critic can probably appreciate one going to the other. And of course, I adore animation in itself. These are not exactly why people read manga for. Maaaaybe you can say they’re in motion manga type things, but who wants to read manga in a guided mode…?
That said, it isn’t like I don’t read manga. My collection is a few times bigger than Author’s but that’s not saying much. I just can’t really call myself a fan of the categorical format, genre or medium. That said, I highly prefer reading on a portrait-mode monitor. At home, I read it using a Dell U2412m–basically that was the only way I can tolerate JManga while they were around. I just can’t stand reading manga on a tablet. The resolution is crap, either because of the display or the source files (all non-high-quality scans should DIAF). Maybe it’s okay on a Nexus 10 or the latest iPad for some, but it’s no substitute for the paper version in my opinion. Maybe this is because I do the manual “zoom” by holding it to my face, which doesn’t really work on manga on a tablet.
Because I’m not the kind of person who just want to read about “what happens next” on average. I like to appreciate the medium. Which is probably why I would rather subject myself to crap-tier light novels than high-quality, near-artbook, manga tanks that Ed is peddling.
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Otakon finally has a public schedule, and that announcement brought the website down. Pretty telling about Otakon this year–it’s a little uncharacteristically late, and it’s going to be crowded. On the other hand when AX brought up theirs, it was just a PDF and it was running off of AWS. Hah. Otakon’s schedule is more like an account-based thing where…obviously some backend sharing was happening. It happened last year too but I didn’t think it was this bad.
I’m going to be there, of course. I have these iDOLM@STER tags that are burning a hole in my wallet and I would love to give them away. If you see me there, let me know if you want one. I’m probably going to ask you a couple questions in exchange, though.
More importantly, I’ll be running a panel with Wah. So if you want to catch me at Otakon you can surely find me there ;) The Panel is Tokyo Otaku Hotspots, scheduled currently for Saturday night at 7:30pm, Panel 4 (which IIRC is in the Hilton). COME ON GUYS DON’T BE SHY. (I am assuming the average reader of this blog is not the con-going type, but tell your con-going friends!) Mainly because there will be prizes.
Here goes hoping the scheduling masters of Otakon (as a press attendee that means several groups of people!) don’t swap things on me to make things difficult.
August 3rd, 2013 at 4:51 am
Filling in all the voice casting via your own imagination is probably part of the fun, though the stretch is nowhere near as far as a book.
In that sense I sort of see where you are coming from in terms of appreciating the medium – it does strike one often that manga (and sequential art stories in general) are in this sort of this halfway state between animation and prose.
Unlike anime though the “flow” in manga is entirely self-directed – you might burn rapidly through a number of scenes and then pause to take in the detail of a two-page spread, for example – but that sort of manipulation on the part of the author is a lot more subtle.
August 3rd, 2013 at 12:08 pm
Just want to comment that Author misses the point in his update. It’s about how large the details appear to the eyes, not how high dot pitch it is. Theoretically on a passive display (like eink) what he says makes sense, but on an active display, putting the screen right next to your eye to see some details is a horrid way to “zoom in.” Which is why reading on a N10 or iPad doesn’t match that functionality versus paper.
On a large enough monitor, I wouldn’t have to put the screen right next to my eye to observe the details, which is why I prefer reading on a reasonably sized (or bigger) monitor over a tablet.
August 5th, 2013 at 7:28 am
Lol, I’ve never done the “zoom” method you describe, Irfanview has great zoom function and so do most browsers. I’ll agree crap scans are more of a problem than the screen or software you’re trying to read manga in. Shit scans /are/ shit scans.
The big problem about manga for me isn’t the method of consumption, it’s how many series we have. I have literally over 300 manga followed in my list on Baka-Updates over the years, and some aren’t in there. It gets impossible to read all of them, much less collect it…. so digital manga is a great thing but the execution thus far SUCKS.
I still purchase physical manga of course. Heck I just bought G.A. Vol 5 (thanks Yen Press!) and there’s still no substitute for a good physical manga in your hand. Most other times, digital consumption is the way to go of course.
As for manga being a “static” medium compared to anime, that’s an obvious thing, but conversely it means that the manga-ka has to really strive hard to elicit enjoyment in his target audience, whether it being in the quality of his art, storytelling or even panel layouts.
Manga is unique in that it only has the visual aspects to deliver its entertainment, without the help of other senses such as sound or literary comprehension (i.e. walls of text). For me, manga offers a very rich experience as long as the manga-ka is up to the task, equal to anime or LN’s.
August 5th, 2013 at 10:00 am
I actually agree with most of that stuff. Some manga are great reads even for people who like soundtrack music ;)
But this just means I’m going to read just a few manga even over many years.