History of Manga

As we learned from Alex, manga is another form of Graphic Novels.  It's a lot more stylistic and different from your usual graphic novel though.

The Kangi for Manga

Japanese in origin, manga significantly predates the comic (by about 150 years.)  The word itself directly translates into "whimsical drawings" and while the comics are Japanese, the word origin is Chinese.

Modern manga appeared in the 1940s as a huge post-war movement.  Astro Boy was probably the first and most popular manga that appeared during that time.  To this day, it is still immensely popular in Japan.

Manga has come to include a huge range of subjects, from space travel (such as Cowboy Beebop), to superheroes, even porn.  You can get manga books, magazine and of course, anime, which is essentially manga translated to television (though, to be fair, the styles tend to differ slightly between anime and manga.)

 





This is the manga version of Sailor Moon;

below is the anime version.  See the style difference?

The US even started to catch onto the craze, though much later than Japan.  Manga started to make its appearance in the 1980s.  Anime actually exploded in the US first, mostly because it was much more accessible than manga was.  During the 90s, when anime really became big, the manga counterparts became more readily available.  Though originally published left to right, most manga now reads right to left, as originally intended.  Dragonball Z, Pokémon and Ghost in a Shell were some of the most popular and among the first manga to come over.

If you want to know more about manga and anime, the Wikipedia page is immensely thorough.