What is Anime and Manga?

In Japan, the term "anime" is a shortened word, and refers to any forms of animation. But outside of Japan, we use the term to refer to animation made by the Japanese. On the other hand, the term "manga" literally translates to "random pictures" and used in Japan to refer to comics. But again, outside of Japan, the word is used exclusively to comic books that originated in Japan. These two are closely connected since most manga titles are animated to come up with a new anime series.

The use of the word "manga" in Japan began in the 18th century. Picture books were published by various artists. Later on, their works become greatly influenced by the Western culture when Japanese started hiring American artists to train Japanese art workers. Dr. Osamu Tezuka is considered by many as the father of modern manga and anime. He first introduced the story-telling style for manga during the second World War. He created the manga "Tetsuwan Atom". Later on, it was animated and exported to the US. The English version was called "Astro Boy". Since then, Japan started producing more manga that are later on animated and exported to other parts of the globe.

There are styles common to anime and manga titles. One of this is the facial features of the characters including large eyes, small mouth and nose. Dr. Tezuka was the first in Japan who applied this kind of style and it was said that this style was influenced by American cartoons like Betty Boop, Mickey Mouse and other Disney characters. Another style is the use of hints to show emotions in the character. The glowing of the eyes (even without light source) is used to show happiness of a certain character. When a character is embarrassed, we often see a very large sweat drop on his/her head. These are just two of the styles that we see in various anime and manga and there are a lot more.

Finally, anime and manga comes in different genres. There are some that are specifically made for girls, some specifically made for boys. There are also some that are only for adults which contains nudity and sex commonly known as Hentai. Not only those but there are a lot more genres one can choose from. They have more variety compared to Western cartoons.

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