What Are the Key Characteristics of Manga Illustration?

Discover more about this format and the key characteristics of Japanese illustration

The word “manga” refers to Japanese comics and graphic novels. The manga industry is huge and a key part of Japanese culture: its reach goes way beyond the country’s borders.

In this blog post, we explore the history and main features of this genre.

For those of us who are not from Japan, the word manga refers to the drawing style that makes Japanese comics so recognizable and the particular look of the characters they depict. For us, manga is not as broad a category as it is for Japanese people.

We consider it a unique genre with distinctive qualities and features ranging from the way it is read, how it is serialized, the use of certain colors, and its own beauty standards.

When did manga first appear?

Researchers dispute the time period during which manga first appeared: some say it was during the twelfth century since drawings accompanied by texts from that era have been interpreted as having manga-like characteristics. However, for other scholars, manga is a cultural expression born in the early twentieth century.

What we now call manga first became massively popular in the 1980s, thanks to Japanese animator Osamu Tezuka’s series, “Astro Boy”. In fact, many of the characteristics that we associate with manga, such as the characters having large glistening eyes, came from him.

While non-Japanese readers see manga as something unique and different from Western genres, Tezuka has actually said that he drew inspiration from American cartoons, such as Betty Boop, and early Disney characters, such as Bambi. Ironically, many important Disney cartoonists have talked about having been heavily influenced by the work of Japanese cartoonists, including Hayao Miyazaki.

For decades, there has been a constant cultural exchange between East and West, each taking each other’s output as reference material. Craig McCracken created The Powerpuff Girls for Cartoon Network in the late ’90s, using anime as a key reference. Later in Japan, The Powerpuff Girls was reimagined as an anime called Powerpuff Girls Z.

Its influence on a generation

In the 1980s and 1990s, Japanese animation experienced a boom in the West and was broadcast on every children's television channel. Nickelodeon is a key example of this phenomenon–it was an entirely Western production, but its narrative and aesthetic were very similar to anime.

Adults who were children in the 80s and 90s have grown up watching anime such as Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, Naruto, and Sakura Cardcaptor. These shows have therefore influenced the visual aesthetic of this generation.

What are manga characters' main features?

–Expressive eyes. Big eyes help to convey the characters’ emotions in a powerful way.
–Slender silhouettes. The bodies of the characters usually have a proportion of seven heads or more.
–Very white skin
–Japanese-style school uniforms.
–Pages are read from right to left, like traditional Japanese writing.
–Put cartoonish characters in realistic settings.
–Greater variety of transitions between vignettes.

English version by @eloiseedgington.

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–Manga Tutorial: Give Eyes Color and Sparkle
–5 Interesting Facts about Manga
–10 Great Manga Artists and Their Work