I'm really gonna get killed for this one...

[Soap Committee]

My biggest gripe (aside from the fact that most anime styled comics tend to just use badly rehashed versions of existing stories from anime/manga) is that in most cases, the defining features are hair and clothes. And that is it. The emphasis seems to be on making as wild a hairstyle as possible, and less emphasis on creating individual, recognisable faces.

Yeah. I like Yuu Watase's work, but I kinda drifted away when I realized that the protaganist and her love interest always ends up with the same faces as the corresponding roles of previous stories. My sister is collecting her fourth comic series, and yet again the faces are the same. Not to mention, in the three of four that I've read, the heroine always seems to have a problem getting herself into "DON'T RAPE MEEE" situations. >_>

[Phalanx]

My beef with Aniwannabe/Amerimanga is that they try so hard to do it 'exactly like the japanese' they forget they're supposed to making a comic.

[Levi-chan]

Stuff like this?
http://www.totallyspies.com/

Would you hate me if I actually said I watch that everyday? I know, it's derivative, cliched, and utterly shallow....

...yet, I can't look away...

(I watch SD Gundamn Force though, so I guess my "tastebuds" aren't that refined.)

-L

[Mercury Hat]

Americanized manga is why you should avoid anything published by Antarctic Press.

Like this.

[KODAMA]

My beef with Aniwannabe/Amerimanga is that they try so hard to do it 'exactly like the japanese' they forget they're supposed to making a comic.

1. There seems to be a running trend to name the main characters with Japanese names - but I don't think the Japanese chose their charcter names in Japanese to attract attention. I bet if a Japanese comic creator was fluent in english, he or she would give his or her characters normal names or names that sound plausible to the majority of people. If the comic is drawn in america and all, shouldn't the characters have names that don't sound extremely alien? And uh, Japanese people no longer wear kimonos and carry swords around, contrary to popular (and stereotyped) belief. Kanji is not as cool as you think it is.

2. Right to left? wtf? Draw LEFT TO RIGHT. I can understand a comic being right to left for a japanese comic since the words are written up to down, and each new sentance is placed on the left side of the previous sentence (so in a sense, the words are going from right to left)
But english does NOT flow right to left. Again with this needless imitation of the Japanese - a printed publication should try to keep with previously existing standard - such as being legible left to right. When the japanese are reading their own manga, they aren't forced to read the comic against how they read all other books. It should be the same for english speaking people reading comics written by fellow english speaking folk.

3. Do not draw a whole comic with your charcters super deformed (or otherwise knownas "chibi") unless it's a three-panel comic (or I think this is also called "news paper" comic format). As easy as SD might seem to be, drawing a character SD with consistancy takes a lot of practice. Consistancy is a must. Anatomic correctness is also a must.
Just look at your faovrite series like naruto or kenshin or fruits basket - anatomy is, if it's not changed to look better, usually pretty damn close to reality (a good example would be hands. Hands are usually drawn the same way hands look in real life, although they may be bigger or smaller proportionally depending on the comic creator's intentions). Drawing a face that is half of the head and calling that a "style" is an insult to every other manga out there where the creator spent years perfecting his or her knowledge of human anatomy.

4. Don't use stupid colors(neon green hair with a mangeta outift? Oww my eyes and brain.) Make eye colors match. Give your characters plausible (and hopefully cool or pretty) outifts. Yuna is not the coolest japanese thing ever created. There need to be less emphasis on charcters and colors and more emphasis on good stories. Most manga is popular for the storyline - artwork only compliments the whole manga (hell just look at popular series like shin-chan no crayon. The guy can't draw at all, but because the manga was funny as hell, it was also animated and put onto various merchandise items). A manga with only good artwork and craptastic plot is um, very boring, if anything. (like my stuff. hahaha)

[Komiyan]

Like soaps work. Heavily influenced by anime. Merc's style evolved from anime. So did K-Dawgs. I'm sure a lot of peoples styles were influenced by anime. If I had to take a stab at it, I'd wager Komiyan is one of those people

...hush you!

Yes, you're right. Not sure why I think of it as a stimga, though.. I guess because terrible manga knockoffs are so common these days.

[Thirdworldvillian]

You guys have to admit, though, its at least good that people are focusing on a style and sitcking with it even if it is some lame japenese style rip off.

My main problem is that there is just too damn much of it. Have any of you seen onlinecomics.net lately? Its ridiculous (super ridiculous even) that they have a seperate group for manga or whatever the hell it is and yet all those comics flood into every other category as well.

BE FRACKIN ORIGIONAL KIDS!

[Mercury Hat]

My biggest problem with the Americanized stuff isn't that it's drawn in manga style, just that it puts so much emphasis on being a manga. There's a lot that goes into manga besides the artwork and really, to me, manga comes from Japan. It's the Japanese word for comics just like manhwa/manwha is the Korean term for the same thing. Comics from Japan I call manga, comics from Korea I'd call manhwa, and comics from the West I'd call comics.

And yes, the emulation of the right to left style really ticks me off when it's done by someone who grew up doing things left to right because there's no reason to do it other than "I'M GONNA BE A MANGA-KA ^_^".

But I don't mind anime/manga-derived styles (I'd be a ginormous hypocrite if I did ) so long as it's something distinct. I don't care how you draw so long as I can tell you drew it.

[Chibiartstudios]

I'll have to agree with alot of the points made. But as a rabid anime fan I feel I should play devils advocate.

First off. I think we should separate this argument into 3 different disussions:

1) Does manga/anime suck?

2) Does Amermanga/anime suck?

3) Does Ameriwebmanga/anime suck?

This way we pick on three separate demographics for their individual bad points rather than lumping them all together.

...

1) Does manga suck

Depends.

I work in Barnes and Noble so I read about a single manga a day. So I've read alot. I really think that by closing the book because of a japaneese cartooning style you are really closing yourself off to some great things like Akira, Fullmettal Alchemist, and One piece. And as for the ratio of comics/manga issue, I think that problem has come about not because anime has too much of a pressance but because it sells better than it's (for the moment) inferior american counterparts.

I notice that with only a few exceptions like Gaiman and Eisner (two of my all time fav's actually!) most comics revolve around superheroes snd aren't verry good. Remember that for a time American comics went through a phase where being pollitically correct was first and foremost due to pressure from christian groups and comics for the most part turned to crap. The industry has improved immensely since then but not nearly as much as they should have. Also, the reliance on the superhero geanre has been a crutch IMHO. It's just overdone and tired. It's fun, the classics like spider man are still fun to read, but it's like a soap opera. You KNOW it's not going anywhere and the story has been going on for so long you don't remember 90% of it. Manga, on the other hand has taken an entirely different evolution in Japan.

For one thing, manga embraces an ending. Thats HUGE for me as I like resolution (though I admit I like it as many books into the future as possible so I can enjoy the story longer. Hence One Piece in my rec list.) in my reading. And while, yes, there are some repititios problems in alot of manga like the overuse of the high school romance theme (that I HATE) and an occasional lack of original character design. Most manga I have read have had FAR more original and engaging storry telling than most of the american comics on the market which is, again, 90% superhero soap operas.

And don't get me started on 99% of the cartoons in America before anime hit the sceene. Compare ANY of them to an anime from the same era in terms of plot, character development, animation, and all around storytelling and most American shows (with the exception of a few like the ninja turtles. They rock!) will get their asses kicked! Some examples:

Gundam vs Street Sharks

Macross vs Creepy Crawlers

Urusei Yatsura vs Biker Mice from Mars

And to deviate from the same erra theme:

Adventures of Sonic the hedgehog (which I like) vs Sonix x (which despite sucking was still better)

American comics and animation where lacking something in entertainment value. This left the door open to anime and manga to take over. It was new! It was pretty! It was FUNNY! A trait that most American comics still shun for some reason.

The shelves will probably even out though. As companies like marvel place a greater emphasis on better and more engaging storytelling over marketing well get more Bones and Sandman's and less Spinnoffs from already overworked geanres.

2) Does amerimanga suck?

Quite often!

As much as I like some of the elements of japaneese storytelling slipping into american culture (take kill bill for example) I weep at how often I see it missused. It's not the "big eyes" that make manga so good to me. It's the way that they tell stories and see manga as an art form first and a business second. Usually anyways...

So Teen titans and Totaly spies may suck but there ARE some good examples out there.

Check this out!

This guy does some FANTASTIC manga style comics and I am making an effort to buy his books (rather than just read them at work)

If we can get more people like this in and more shows like totaly spies out then we'll be set.

3) Do ameriwebmangas/anime suck?

Most of the time!

I'll admit! Despite having an anime influenced art style I must say that 95% of the anime webcomics suck! This puts them above the sprite comics (whic are at 99.9% suckage) but below most other types (at 91% suckage)

Americans usually don't get what makes manga interesting or simply lack the artistic skill to pull it off well. There are exceptions. Before it turned into a harem series Megatokyo was quite good. Sinfest, girly, and exploitation now are all good anime influenced series.

I just wish they where the norm. Most webmanga usues anime style as an excuse to not learn how to draw people correctly. They then hide behind the "its the style!" argument that I hate. As I've said many times before. Cartooning is about knowing the rules, then bending them to your will. Not ignoring them. And THATS what I think pisses alot of people off.

That and the fact that alot of these guys don't realise that Americans don't have japaneese names. That gets annoying to.


And lastly. Manga and anime come from Japan. Everything else is just usiung a manga "inspired" style. I hate how most people don't get that!


So that's my two cents! Bring on the pain!

[Soap Committee]

Americanized manga is why you should avoid anything published by Antarctic Press.

Like this.

That looks NOTHING like the plot in Tenchi! No, sir.

[Jackhass]

I don't mind some anime/manga...

...but I do get very tired of 90% of webcomics having characters straight out of Dragonball Z.

The style has it's place...but if you're doing a real-world based comic about college room-mates or something, having them both have giant anime eyes and 2 foot tall purple spikey hair is just stupid.

[Zhan_Dvega]

The only type of manga I really hate is that "high-school-romance" crap. You know, the kind that stars what look like eight-year-olds, or in which the parts of sixteen-year-olds are played by twenty-somethings.

Ahahaaaa... *hides comic*

(Seriously, don't read it. It sucks.)

And, um... that's all I have to add to the topic that hasn't already been said.

[Wp]

I don't really hate people, but he was a bit abrasive. I remember once he said that "Jack" is a badly drawn furry comic and that the artist thinks he's brilliant because he draws a school shooting and so and so. A few days later he gets his own domain name and site, and pictches his comic in the Jack forum as a "long time reader." I didn't call him on it though. I guess he never said he was a fan, but still rather bold in my opninion.

BK was an attention-monger with an ego the size of Texas. Every post he made was to either promote his comic or to hint at how well it was doing. Keenspace was a minor pitstop for him in promoting his comic. Once he built up a large enough readership, he disappeared.

Anyway, people, even if you think the word "manga" or "anime" only comes from Japan, it is still largely defined by the art style. You can do whatever you want to with the art style, whether it be an American superhero comic or just another typical anime plot.

[Helixdq]

I prefer realistic style over manga style drawings in general, although i like some of both.
I also am not particularly interested in the kind of storilines some manga seems to have (high-school stuff, very young protagonist with magical powers, etc...).
There are a few i've liked though, and some of the style seems to have influenced some very good comics (and webcomics).

To be honest i like it more then superhero comics though (not into that at all - especially the ones where there's lots of them ). I don't know my preferences in comics are probably heavily influenced by the piles of french BDs i had/read as a kid ... does anyone even do/like that stuff anymore ?

[Jen_Babcock]

I enjoy looking at manga over anime, mainly b/c I don't like the way a good majority of japanese cartoons are done. The frame rate of big American animation studios are much more appealing to me than a lot of Japanese stuff, which tend to be at a much lower frame rate.

Having that said, I really like Miyazaki's work even if most of his films are at a lower frame rate than early 90s Disney films (their second golden age, I think). However, his animation is definitely not cheap and recycled looking, and he does use the higher frame work when it's *really* necessary.

Howl's Moving Castle was superb btw- everything was done extremely well, as is to be expected from Miyazaki.

[Ryuko]

You're right, Jen. Because so much anime is produced by the same studios, they're often very cheap with it. You get to recognize the cheap tricks after a while.

But with manga, they're always looking for something new and interesting, especially in art style. Looking at things like One Piece and Shaman King can show you that definitively. I love manga quite a lot.

[War]

I don't really hate people, but he was a bit abrasive. I remember once he said that "Jack" is a badly drawn furry comic and that the artist thinks he's brilliant because he draws a school shooting and so and so. A few days later he gets his own domain name and site, and pictches his comic in the Jack forum as a "long time reader." I didn't call him on it though. I guess he never said he was a fan, but still rather bold in my opninion.

BK was an attention-monger with an ego the size of Texas. Every post he made was to either promote his comic or to hint at how well it was doing. Keenspace was a minor pitstop for him in promoting his comic. Once he built up a large enough readership, he disappeared.

Yeah...large readership...

*sniggers*

[Prapim]

I think that whether something is a manga or not is not as important as:

Is the comic actually interesting?

There's lots of cases where the comic may have good art but quite bland a storyline. However, lazy, 1-minute sketched art with a good plot wouldn't draw much readership either. So I guess the best ones are the ones that manage to balance the two (appearance and content) together well.

It's strange that Japanese stationery have bad English on them and the Western people take the Japanese manga idea. Just a thought.

I wouldn't say much more in case I contradict myself...my comic steals from manga itself... oh, as for anime, I would have to agree to a point. Only that the animes I hate are those with eye-killer colours, nonexistent shadows and dubbed versions where the voice-actors seem to breathe helium.

[Dominic]

I can't say I hate anime...or manga, for that matter. It's a style and a genre, and like any style/genre, it has good and bad. Kat Otomo knocks me on my ass, as does Hiyao Miyazaki. Ghost in the Shell was inspired. Grave of the Fireflies is one of my favorite films. On the other hand, Samurai X, Vampire Hunter D, Hellsing, Evangeliion, and all their imitators leave me cold. The stories just don't appeal to me.
In comics, Koike and Kojima take place of pride on my bookshelf. Video Girl AI has a very nice visual style reminiscent of Adam Hughes. Osamu Tezuka can do no wrong. Adolf and Joan and Barefoot Gen are all excellent books, both visually and in terms of story. For some strange reason, I really enjoy the style of whoever does "Sexy Losers" (that may be my inner pervert speaking) Most of the rest of the stuff I have seen...from Shonen Jump to Pulp to Bondage Fairies, with a lot of stuff in between...strikes me as visually confusing with no literary hook. You'd have to point a gun at me to get me to read Dragonball Z or its ilk, although my daughter seems to like this stuff.
Like any art style, the end result depends on the intent and skill of the creator. Superhero art in comics was briefly interesting again when Jim Lee started on X-Men. By the time Rob Liefeld hit his stride, everyone was pretty tired of it, and with good reason. That doesn't mean that you can't still get superhero books; it's just that it's been done to death. Anime/manga is headed the same way, especially online. For a while, it may have been cool to have a manga strip, especially as it was a pleasant alternative to the Kirby/Eisner Western tradition. Now, it's being overdone and readers will once again look for something different.
One thing that I've been seeing more of lately is a simplistic online style that seems derived from the bande dessinee school....solid linework and form, with little or no shading and stylized forms, a la PvP, Questionable Content, Angst Technology, and that sort of thing. It's a style that makes sense for the visual requirements of online viewing, and looks nice when combined with anime style cel shading. I think that's going to be the next thing to hold sway until people get tired of that too.
In short (too late!) my approach to anime/manga is the same as with any trend: "This too shall pass".

[Chibiartstudios]

I prefer realistic style over manga style drawings in general, although i like some of both.
I also am not particularly interested in the kind of storilines some manga seems to have (high-school stuff, very young protagonist with magical powers, etc...).

Amen. Though I think you are stereotyping a bit. There are ALOT of manga that avoid high school stuff. Though I will admit that that's a pretty big part of it. Largely because the main consumer is in the HS-College range. But I digress. You may like these mangas that have a more adult feel:

-Berserk (my personal fav)
-Battle angel
-Case closed (not as cute as it looks)
-Battle royale
-Akira
-Trigun (goes way beyond the anime BTW)
-One piece (The poor anime ;_; Look what they've done to you!)
-Pet Shop of Horrors
-Ghost in the shell
-Sorceror Hunters
-Hellsing (makes more sense than the anime)

There are others like Hunter X Hunter that I found to be VERY good as well but sadly they fall under this category... oh well.

I enjoy looking at manga over anime, mainly b/c I don't like the way a good majority of japanese cartoons are done. The frame rate of big American animation studios are much more appealing to me than a lot of Japanese stuff, which tend to be at a much lower frame rate.

Are you comparing the movies to eachother or the TV anime to the disney movies. Cuz' that's just a little unfair. When making a movie you only have to fill 2 hours rather than 12 in the case of your average TV season. You HAVE to budget some and sadly some annoying habits have developed. Though I will say that alot of the more recent american animeated shows have done better at avoiding things like stock footage than their japaneese counterparts. Funnier too! (Family Guy Rocks!)