Yeah, you read that right. Manga is much more like cinema than comics. How? It’s the point of this post. First of all, I would like to get out of the way what I mean by Forms of Comics. So, it means in the context of this article, american comics such as DC, Marvel types and also small comic strips like Garfield and Peanuts. I also include BD franco-belge (TinTin, Aterix, etc…) in the mix. I finally exclude Manhwa and Webtoon because they essentially follow the same pattern of visual story telling than manga; it’s just made by Koreans instead with their own culture added.

DIRECTING IN MANGA

First of all, manga is closer to cinema because there is the presence of directing. In each panels of a manga page the viewing angle of the fictional space is taken in consideration. As an analogy, the panels in a manga each represent a camera positioned in a different angle to capture the space in which the story takes place. I’ll also add that the better one is able to play with those angles and interchange them without breaking the rhythm of the story the better they are as a manga artist.

You might consider that it’s unfair to attribute directing to manga because it can be done in any other comic form. The thing that justifies the differentiation is simply because the Japanese where the first to use directing in their comics because they where fan of movies and so their comics looks more like a movie storyboard than anything else to be honest. Also they are still doing it and 99% of manga use direction. It’s very well established as a standard of what constitute a manga.

(For bonus, many people think that manga is just story and art but the truth is that it’s more like story + art + directing and the most important are not story and art but story and directing. This explains the success of poorly drawn manga like the original One Punch Man)

Now I suggest that we take a look at real examples of directing in manga and extract insightful observations. So, I’ve decided to take One Punch Man by Yusuke Murata to use as an example because he is so good at directing, it’s crazy! For abstraction, I’ll write my observations as if One Punch Man was a live-action filmed with cameras.

So, what can we conclude?

Number of panels rarely exceeding 4 per page. It’s for rhythm and visual clarity this also explains why manga volumes a usually 200 pages. It’s necessary to have that many pages to tell something substantial because of the low number of panels per page.

The viewing angle change almost all the time per panel. There is a high frequency of change in directing.

There is the use of changing angle only slightly from a panel to another to keep it coherent before making a drastic angle change in the next panel.

Those characteristics coincide with what you can usually find in a movie storyboard. Frequent changing angles, coherence between shots,etc…

MANGA VS COMICS

The main difference is that comic volumes are less lengthy in pages and they have to cover the same amount of story so they can’t afford to change the angles frequently. They usually use the same angle multiple times and they condense text in panels. That’s why it’s less rhythmic than manga and some times less fun to read. If you wondered why you hated reading through the recent chapters of Hunter X Hunter it’s probably because Togashi is trying to condense more text in his chapters with note enough panels. There should be a golden rule in manga that would allow artist to know what is the optimal ration between quantity of text and number of panels.

At the very least, Togashi changes frequently the angles to not break the rhythm further.

Conclusion

Today, we see the use of directing in manga globally inspiring comic authors around the world who are starting to adopt its use. That’s why the lines between manga and comics are slowly starting to fade. Some might argue that manga is just comics in Japanese. On a surface level it’s true but on a deeper level and with how manga is technically made, there is a difference.

Thanks for reading through this article. I hope that you found this insightful and if you did why not partake in a discussion in the comment section. You can also follow me on this blog if you are interested in further content from me. The subscribe button is at the top-right of this post.