Narrative is a “mimesis” of human action, as defined by Aristotle. Mimesis is achieved by means of discourse, the combination of expressive signs available in a medium. In graphic narratives or story-manga, discourse utilizes three primary elements: image, word, and panel, with various expressive techniques developed for each. The actual signs of discourse, however, serve only as a starting point. It is by utilizing imaginative supplementation that the reader is able to interpret events, receive impressions, understand temporal and spatial transitions, and grasp the overall structure of the narrative world, that is, the story. The cognitive process of the reader can be broken down into three hypothetical phases: micro-, meso- and macroscopic. This chapter provides an outline of each phase in order to demonstrate the distinctiveness of manga as a narrative medium in terms of its expressive means and the resulting narrative experience.

This chapter examines the role of voices in Japanese anime with limited visible movement from the angle of a recording practice called afureko (“after recording”). Through a comparison of the recording script and the film script with the final anime version, it analyzes how the voice actors communicate the emotions and thoughts of the characters while synchronizing with the images. As a result, it becomes clear to what extent voice acting is informed by the punctuation and the ellipses indicated in the recording script. The particularities of voice acting and voice actors’ identification with characters are investigated in reference to the theory of acting published by voice actor Ichirō Nagai in 1981.

The Introduction delineates the types of manga and anime addressed in this Companion and how they are approached, before outlining the individual contributions in the order of their appearance, as well as their interrelations. It begins with the terms used for “manga” and “anime” in Japanese whose scope is narrowed to the globally recognizable types in order to accommodate their correlation within this book. Historical, aesthetic, demographic, subcultural, and industrial commonalities of the two media forms are mentioned. This is followed by a brief explanation of the book’s prevailing new-formalist approach, which manifests in its structure: nine sections on specific aspects that are addressed from the perspectives of manga studies and anime studies respectively. Finally, the decision to do without a particular history chapter, and having historical commentary be interspersed throughout the volume instead, is clarified.

This chapter looks at a humor subgenre of manga defined by form, the four-panel (comic) strip known in Japanese as yonkoma manga. While this form has played a significant role in modern manga history, including a close interrelation with story-manga, it remains underrepresented in comics studies today. Yonkoma manga can be found in magazines and on internet platforms, but in this chapter, the focus leans toward newspapers where the strips initially developed and today still reach their widest audience. A brief historical overview of the development and current situation of four-panel strips is given before attention turns to their structure, usually described as ki-shō-ten-ketsu (introduction-development-turn of events-conclusion). How this conventional narrative structure is approached varies. This is demonstrated by introducing the creative processes of a few artists. To highlight this structure, an example strip is described. To move beyond mere explications of narrative pattern, however, this chapter ends with a simple application of linguistic humor theory to reveal in part how the humor is created, and to call for more engagement with humor theories in manga studies.

This chapter explores how anime fan audiences have evolved since the 1950s regarding the development of physical venues and digital platforms. Fan audiences as “produser” (Bruns, 2008) consume, produce, and use anime and its related content through their various activities such as producing derivative works (dojinshi fanzines, music videos, and even games), performing cosplay, engaging in contents tourism, and so on. Fans’ deep commitment was incited by anime booms that happened in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s. The 1970s saw the beginning of the Comic Market, where fans can communicate with one another by selling and purchasing fanzines and performing cosplay, although the issue of copyright infringement has remained unsolved. Moreover, since the late 1990s, the internet and social media have facilitated the dissemination of anime and other contents produced through media mix (i.e., multimedia franchises) on an international scope. They also serve as platforms for fans to interact with each other domestically and globally.

This chapter provides an overview of genre as a tool for analyzing manga. The main genres in manga are based on demographics, shōnen (boys) manga and shōjo (girls) manga. This chapter discusses how shōnen and shōjo manga evolved, along with other related genres: gekiga, seinen manga, boys love (BL), and josei manga. It also discusses as examples two thematic genres that appear in both shōnen and shōjo, sports manga, and isekai (other world). Understanding the parameters and meanings of manga genres explains not only specific narrative and aesthetic choices but also how manga functions socially for readers. Demographic genres inform readers of what types of narratives and aesthetics to expect. Looking at how thematic genres such as sports and isekai change to fit shōnen or shōjo conventions shows how genres are flexible categories continually evolving to reflect readers’ interests.

Since the 1960s manga has boasted a firm standing in the Japanese economy and society by continuously offering captivating and commercially successful narratives. This has been made possible in great measure by the manga magazines as the central venue of publication from the 1960s until the late 1990s, and their editor-in-charge system. This chapter surveys the multiple roles that manga editors fulfill, from corporate agent to manga artists’ collaborator and target-audience representative. It introduces the basic institutional steps of producing a manga serial while considering differences between printed and digital formats, up to and including remuneration practices. The main focus is on corporate manga’s commodity value as the common goal of both editors and artists, as well as the related fact that readership, or consumption, is given precedence over authorship, and collaborative over individual authorship.

With the recent COVID-19 pandemic, the hitherto slow transition of Japan’s animation industry from the Tokyo-centric traditional production methods using paper-based materials to a fully digital network that connects individuals over vast distances has accelerated. This coincides with an unprecedented uptick in the establishment of new animation production studios in the regional areas of Japan, and with incentives in the form of public subsidies for “regional revitalization” projects designed to mitigate the effects of depopulation, theoretically creating a mutually beneficial situation for all parties involved. This chapter introduces various examples of regional studios and analyzes their differences in approach, in particular with regard to the involvement with the local community. It illuminates their main function and position, be it serving as a contract-based independent entity, a subsidiary of a Tokyo-based company, or a studio developing in-house projects to subcontract work out for, thus earning license revenue.

The most-cited progenitors of manga (and, in part, anime) are medieval picture scrolls (emaki), Hokusai Manga, and 18th-century graphic fiction called kibyōshi. This chapter revisits them from the perspective of modern story-manga. It analyzes textual and material affordances of a manga-typical reading experience, stretching from devices of visual storytelling to publication formats and participatory culture. The emphasis is on demonstrating that correlations of today’s manga with aesthetic traditions may be highly instructive depending on how they are performed, in particular, on which type of manga is compared to which art form from the past against which set of contemporary concerns. As part of this endeavor, the historical contingency of “manga” comes to the fore: as visual art based on line drawing, but also as visual narrative realized through sequenced images and facilitated by transdiegetic devices; as fiction but also non-fiction narratives and non-narrative manuals; as not necessarily “cinematic” but also “theatrical” graphic narratives; and as defined by textual properties but also (sub)cultural practices of use.

TV anime’s reliance on 2D-limited animation techniques was born in the 1960s out of budgetary constraints, but since then it has been embraced as a defining feature, especially in shōnen (boys) anime. This genre famously features protagonists who perform miraculous actions with unpredictable outcomes, the details of which can be conveniently left unvisualized under the guise of stylistic omission. Today, however, as 3D modeling and animation techniques are integrated more and more visibly into the animation pipeline, the relatively easier portrayal of seamless physical performance as spectacle may conflict with the mystery of how the shōnen hero operates. This chapter seeks to determine whether the concept of “3D anime” is plausible and how the shōnen anime narrative remains animeesque in terms of causal ambiguity.

Manga communicates diverse qualities of sound through visual effects applied to writing. Voices in spoken dialogue, thoughts, and voiceovers are often represented through different type fonts or handwriting. This serves as a narrative tool to differentiate between text categories but also gives each one of them a specific resonance in the reader’s mind. Manga employs a multitude of usually handwritten mimetic words to express sounds and other sensations. Among the various graphic shapes these words assume is a semi-materialization of the written characters, which can undergo physical effects of the represented phenomenon and enter the spatial depth of the storyworld. The Japanese writing system heavily facilitates the visual characteristics of mimetics in manga, be it with the expressive use of the hiragana and katakana syllabaries, the vowel-lengthening symbol, or the sonant mark.