Why not just call Manga ''comics'' and anime ''Cartoons''?

[Ghost]

If you want to go by strict definitions, then sure it's complicated, but over time there's a set of attributes that people associate with anime, and they aren't in those cartoons. The borderline examples would be stuff like Avatar the Last Airbender.

I disagree, well with some things. Stylistically, the Boondocks is basically an anime made for America. Also Inspector Gadget and Thundercats looked more 'anime' depending on the studios that drew certain seasons. More-so than some others.

From Gadgets wiki: "In the second season, the animation increasingly began to resemble a typical 1980s Japanese anime cartoon, most likely because it was animated by DiC's own then-new Japanese-based animation facilities (many first-season episodes that were animated by TMS Entertainment often mimicked typical American animation, akin to their work on Tiny Toon Adventures). It was not uncommon for Gadget to briefly freeze in an "anime" pose when shocked, or slower frame rates when characters would move."

I do agree shows like Avatar and Teen Titans are borderline, or obviously inspired by anime.

[Muad'Dib]

I'm not a fan of the sub-genrification of artforms. Not in music, not in comics, and certainly not in film/animation. The medium is the medium, and genrification serves no purpose in the art itself, but does serve in the realms of marketing/promotion/sales...to me it serves to divide us into camps rather than unite us in a love of the art, the storytelling, the creators. Animation is animation regardless of what timezone its produced in. Comics are comics regardless of the home nation of the creator.

[pearlofthepacific]

Yes, if it's in print, comics; if it's projected, it's an animation....but there's no reason why we shouldn't use specific terms when we want to discuss specific styles or genres.

I live in Japan, so I see manga every day, non-J comics less frequently...TBH I call them all comics or manga indiscriminately, but when I want to differentiate, I think of manga as something with Japanese-style panels and emanata and (ideally!) more unity between words and pictures.

I have no problem with "graphic novel"...it tells me that it's a story complete in one book (so serials are "comics"), and many of these seem to owe as much to the color art from the picture-book boom of the 80s and 90s as they do to black and white manga or comics with flat color...so why not have a name for them?

I don't think that naming a style or genre needs to divide us.

[Alan2099]

Manga and anime isn't a style or genre. I've never understood people that use that as a defense.

Can you honestly sit there and tell me things like Pokemon or Sailor Moon have anything in common with Franken Fran or Devil Man?

They have no more in common with each other than The Muppet comics and Garth Ennis's Preacher.

And why is it that stuff that comes out of Japan is the only ones to get the fancy names? People that like Judge Dredd don't insist that it's ... I dunno Eurocomic or some stupid name.

[Legato]

From the sound of things this thread looks like a powder keg waiting to go off as, judging from what I've read, some folks have no respect for Japanese culture.

[Pól Rua]

From the sound of things this thread looks like a powder keg waiting to go off as, judging from what I've read, some folks have no respect for Japanese culture.

It has nothing to do with respect for Japanese culture.
The main people who are going to be offended by people referring to 'manga' as 'comics' or 'anime' as 'cartoons' are culturally appropriationist Western Japanophiles who can tell you everything about what episode of 'Naruto' anything happened in and live on Pocky but have no actual respect for Japan as a real country, just as a storehouse for their cultural fetish objects.

If you're reading comics and want to call them 'manga' that's fine.
But if you want to get huffy because someone calls your comic book a comic book instead of it's secret Japanese clubhouse name, then you may be the problem.
I read European Comics and feel no need to refer to one as a bande dessinée, but even if I did, I think it would be unreasonable for me to get offended or angry or start to bandy about claims of racism or disrespect for culture if someone called them a comic or even *gasp* a funnybook.

It reminds me of people who insist "I don't read comics, I read graphic novels". It's a nonsensical distinction, and its roots are in a form of intellectual dishonesty. It's so much easier to brand ALL comics as mindless trash, if you refuse to admit to yourself that the comics you like are, in fact, comics at all.

[Legato]

It has nothing to do with respect for Japanese culture.
The main people who are going to be offended by people referring to 'manga' as 'comics' or 'anime' as 'cartoons' are culturally appropriationist Western Japanophiles who can tell you everything about what episode of 'Naruto' anything happened in and live on Pocky but have no actual respect for Japan as a real country, just as a storehouse for their cultural fetish objects.

If you're reading comics and want to call them 'manga' that's fine.
But if you want to get huffy because someone calls your comic book a comic book instead of it's secret Japanese clubhouse name, then you may be the problem.
I read European Comics and feel no need to refer to one as a bande dessinée, but even if I did, I think it would be unreasonable for me to get offended or angry or start to bandy about claims of racism or disrespect for culture if someone called them a comic or even *gasp* a funnybook.

It reminds me of people who insist "I don't read comics, I read graphic novels". It's a nonsensical distinction, and its roots are in a form of intellectual dishonesty. It's so much easier to brand ALL comics as mindless trash, if you refuse to admit to yourself that the comics you like are, in fact, comics at all.

TBH the ones who are up in arms over the term are the ones who prefer manga as comics while others, such as myself, couldn't really give a crap one way or the other.

[Pól Rua]

TBH the ones who are up in arms over the term are the ones who prefer manga as comics while others, such as myself, couldn't really give a crap one way or the other.

That's the distinction.
I don't care what people call 'em. If they're enjoying 'em and it makes 'em happy, Hurrah! More power to 'em.
The only time it impacts on me is when someone gets snotty and angry because I used the wrong codeword. That's just being mean and weird.

Now can we pick on the people who, when they say 'comics', only ever mean Mainstream Superhero Comics From Two Particular Publishers?

[Alan2099]

Now can we pick on the people who, when they say 'comics', only ever mean Mainstream Superhero Comics From Two Particular Publishers?

You mean everybody in the whole world except those weird hipster indie people?


I'm kidding. Don't hurt me... and is it just me, or do out smilies now suck?

[mathew101281]

The only terminology that drives me batty is graphic novel. It's 22 pages of story, art, and cool paneling; it's a comic book people!

To me their there is as much difference between a comicbook and a real graphic novel, as there is between a comic strip and a comic book.

[Lady Warp Spasm]

The only terminology that drives me batty is graphic novel. It's 22 pages of story, art, and cool paneling; it's a comic book people!

Same here. I have no problems with respecting cultural differences as far as comics and animation, i.e. manga and anime.

[t hedge coke]

TBH the ones who are up in arms over the term are the ones who prefer manga as comics while others, such as myself, couldn't really give a crap one way or the other.

It's been my experience that there are quite a few superhero fans who will have fits if you try to talk about manga (or most non-English-first comics) as comics, particularly on comics messageboards. "That's not comics! I said comics!"

That stuff goes both (and all other) ways.

One thing I appreciate here in China, is that foreign comics are pretty much still treated as comics. Someone may clarify the country of origin, or a writer or artist's country of origin, but it's nowhere near as separatist as American fandom can sometimes get. And, it's considered bad form, among the younger, to clarify whether a comic is "for" boys, girls, men, women, w'ev.

"Graphic novel," well... there are graphic novels. Why not? And some are serialized? Again, why not? But calling something sixty pages long a "novel" seems silly, to me, and calling a twenty page "floppy" a "novel," is almost as silly as calling it a "pamphlet." Why you're not supposed to call them "magazines," I never got, though. In general, it's pretty accurate.

[Alex L]

Graphic novels, to me, are initially created as a standalone, one-sale sort of thing as opposed to the floppies that are four-part or six-part stories. So the One Volume Bone edition would not count, since it was originally published as, and meant to be, a serial. Persepolis and Superman: Earth One are, I believe, originally meant to be, and published as a complete volume and so I would consider them GN's.

[Speed Force League Unlimited]

Sometimes I want to just call manga comics, other times I like the distinctive names
Makes it easier to know which is which

[t hedge coke]

Graphic novels, to me, are initially created as a standalone, one-sale sort of thing as opposed to the floppies that are four-part or six-part stories. So the One Volume Bone edition would not count, since it was originally published as, and meant to be, a serial. Persepolis and Superman: Earth One are, I believe, originally meant to be, and published as a complete volume and so I would consider them GN's.

Generally those are called OGNs, or Original Graphic Novels. Even the ridiculously short ones

Persepolis however, was serialized.

How do you feel about serialized prose novels? Still novels or are the bulk of Dickens, etc, just collections?