crazy about manga

I’ve never liked manga – not because I don’t like the style or technique – because of my first exposure to it. The group house I frequented in my early 20’s always had playing in the background violent cartoons featuring monsters raping women and then lopping their heads off with a swift slice of their samurai sword. Screams resounded from the crappy tv speakers, followed by maniacal laughter and cheers from the viewers. If this was what manga was all about, I didn’t want a part of it. The eerie resemblance to characters in one of my favourite childhood cartoons, Astroboy, did nothing to lessen my disgust of the craze.

I have recently learned of a new manga craze – directed at teen girls. Shojo Beat is a comic book for young women, launched recently in bookstores across the US. The comic books are available in hundreds of genres, but there are essentially two types: shonen for boys and shojo for girls.

With themes encompassing young women trying to “make it” in the world, falling in love and managing careers, shojo comics are the extreme opposite of the manga I was introduced to. As teenage girls are “driving the manga market these days” (Evelyn Dubocq, head of public relations at Viz), this may mean good things for the manga industry… and I might even learn to like it after all.

Check out http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm?aid=2334 for the full story…