Manga VS Anime: What's the Difference? (Part One)

In light of my recent turn of interest to manga and anime, I decided that I should pitch my articles towards manga/anime too. So now my blog is literally a mishmash of books, fanfiction, games and manga. Never too good to diversify like that, but everything is all in the good name of writing, so it's hard to separate them.

Anyway, this would be a pilot blog post of sorts, to get me started on all the other drafts and ideas that I have in my head. Despite being a starter, this blog post caters to both the veteran manga readers and the newbies. So continue reading, it may be more useful than you think.

For my non-manga readers, the meaning of 'manga' means japanese comics. 'anime' is short for the word 'animation'. You may refer to them as 'japanese cartoons' but they should not be treated like cartoons, for the only commonality they share is that they are both animated.

Now, back to differences between manga and anime. If you are vaguely some kind of manga/anime fan, you would know the difference between the two. They have been discussed, presented in many websites that you can just pop by and Google nowadays.But there will always be that one person that always interchanges the terms, sadly.



Today, I will present the differences once again to you, in my own words. Some things that I will mention is based on my conclusions by looking at some examples. Also, I rely on the manga "Bakuman" for ideas because the manga focuses on the manga business. You can read more about Bakuman here.

I never had a problem differentiating between manga and anime. I guess it's because I was exposed to the both of them from a young age. For the handful of people who confuses the two terms, especially newbies who are starting out on the world of manga/anime, I can see why they are confused as to whether there is truly a difference. Many big titles that we see together, like Naruto, One Piece, Sword Art Online... They both have the manga and anime version. The anime version is usually more popular. You see them watching episodes on trains, in schools... people think that manga and anime are interchangeable but they are not!

Differences
1. Medium
Most obviously, manga is drawn on paper while anime is animated to be watched like a video. It's not rocket science, but an easy parallel to compare with is for example, the Spiderman comics VS Spiderman cartoons.


Comics on the left, cartoon on the right.

I leave you with the manga and anime of HunterxHunter for you to compare. You may see the obvious that manga is often not coloured but anime is.




2. Inspiration
Manga usually begins as an original story from a mangaka (manga artist). Examples of these are BLEACH, One Piece and many more. There are many cases where manga originate from an already existent idea or universe. So the manga births from a light novel or a highly popular game. Examples of those are Shakugan no Shana (light novel), Full Metal Panic (light novel), Star Ocean EX (game) and Tales of the Abyss (game).

For the anime, almost all the time, the anime project begins when the manga title is largely popular. As such, almost all your mainstream, popular anime are around because their manga counterparts were popular first. There are anime that stems from light novels and games, but the manga would have been in publication first. However, the popularity that leads to the production of the anime is not as dependent on the manga popularity in this case.

3. Publication
The ways to publish manga and an anime are vastly different. As mentioned earlier, animes are proposed to be made once the manga has reached some kind of popularity. Often, the anime helps to boost manga sales.

Now, according to "Bakuman", there is a more tedious process of getting the work published. In a nutshell, authors submit their one-shots and wait for the publishing company to agree to publish it. If the one-shot has a good response, only then can the mangaka (manga artist) draw a series on it. But that's just from Bakuman, so don't take my word for it. However, I feel that in such a competitive industry, I believe it's not so easy to just submit anything for printing.

Manga usually first appears in a comic magazine like Shounen Jump or Margaret, where it's a whole mishmash of chapters from many comics. When the title gains lots of recognition, the author/mangaka will be offered a chance to make their series into tankobons, which is the volumes of manga that we see in comic book shops and so on.

4. Creators
Usually, a single manga artist (or mangaka) draws the manga. There may be assistants helping out with the backgrounds and inking and all that, but the initial plan and sketches are thought of by the mangaka, supported by an editor in the publishing company.

There are people who form teams to draw manga. One comes up with the story plots and one draws.



Bakuman is a prime example. In the manga where two boys aspire to make manga, one of them creates the story and the other draws the manga out. Interestingly, "Bakuman" is created by a team of two people too. With Ohba Tsugumi as the writer and Obata Takeshi as the artist. You will also be interested to know that this same team of people created your ever-famous Death Note.

For anime, a team of artists and producers work together to create an animation. The original creator of the title, if I'm not mistaken, plays a smaller role, more like an advisor rather than to draw for the anime.

4. Content
As mentioned earlier, the anime team usually may or may not have the mangaka's 100% participation. As such, content in the anime may be parallel with the manga, but we will see discrepancies. Examples of discrepancies are filler episodes, or information tweaking. In some cases, the anime completely changes the ending because the manga is still ongoing.

Nowadays, we are lucky to get most anime titles trying to have similar features and events being the same as with the manga. Once upon a time, we have  weird endings just so that the anime can have a peaceful rest (I'm staring at you, Samurai Deeper Kyo anime!)

Well, these are some of the basic differences between anime and manga. So please don't go around saying that they are the same because they can be real different in terms of origin and even their content!

So for my interested readers, I will try to compare the experience of reading manga and watching anime, and which one would suit you. Hope this long exposition has helped you!

Pictures taken from:
Odd one out
Spiderman Comic
Spiderman Cartoon
HunterxHunter Manga
HunterxHunter Anime
Bakuman