Jason Thompson, otherwise known as the Manga Emperor (according to me), has recently wrote a fantastic article at Blog @ Newsarama comparing “battle manga” to American superhero comics. Now I know you all are thinking, “God Len, what’s this battle manga you speak of?” Well, its basically shonen manga where the characters fight, get stronger, fight again, participate in tournaments, and of course turn down any girl that wants to reproduce with them.
This article goes to great lengths to discuss the differences between battles in superhero comics and battles in battle manga. It also explains the three different criteria a battle manga needs to adhere to in order to be considered battle manga. These are as follows:
1) The hero gets in fights.
2) The hero trains to be stronger.
3) The hero gets stronger, and faces successively stronger opponents.
I have to admit this is a great read, but wish I wrote it myself. However, if I may add to his article, one of the biggest differences in my mind between battle manga and superhero comics is the way the fight is drawn. Superhero comics feel choppy to me; Superman is flying toward a foe on one page, and on the next he is uppercutting his foe into the air. But what happened in between those two pages? Manga on the other hand shows what happened; how the character skidded to a halt and how he threw this arm back in order to throw a deadly punch. That’s one of the reasons why I love manga, these small details that superhero comics seem to forget.
Here is the link to the article, but last time I checked it was down, so try the cached version.
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