A mother’s worries

XPRESSWAY
I’M a concerned parent who would like to know more about manga. Judging from your articles, which I read every now and then, manga seems to be a legitimate form of reading material and a rising force that cannot be ignored.
When I was growing up, we only had Doraemon and Xiao Tian Tian (Candy Candy).
However, nowadays, the majority of the manga is about aliens, ghosts and other supernatural beings.
I have a few questions, and I know your answers will give me and many other clueless parents a true and balanced view of the world that is manga!
Ellie Yap
Many of my children’s friends are into manga. How popular do you think it is in Malaysia as opposed to, say, the Harry Potter books?
Elizabeth Tai: I do not have the exact figures so I can’t make a comparison. However, personally, manga is indeed very popular among the young. But not just teenagers and children are reading manga; adults too read them as manga has many genres and caters to all kinds of age groups. In Japan, it is not unusual to see a salaryman reading manga while travelling to work in a subway train.
Why do you think young people love manga so much?
One of the many reasons why so many girls read manga is because it offers more than the usual Spandex-wearing superhero stories featured in Western comics. The shojo genre is a favourite with girls as it is filled with handsome heroes and romantic tales. Boys do tend to gravitate towards the shonen genre, which is more action-packed.
Not only is the art attractive, manga stories are unusual and deal with a wide variety of topics so it appeals to a wide variety of people. Often told from the Asian perspective, manga indeed offers something different from Western graphic novels.
From my observation, 60% to 70% of manga available is about aliens and supernatural beings. Is that true?
Not true, but I must concede that many manga that get translated into English, such as the very popular Inuyasha and Bleach, do tend to involve aliens and supernatural beings!
There are many manga that don’t deal with these two elements. For example, Inubaka is the perfect manga for dog lovers as it’s about the adventures of a girl who works in a pet shop.
Older girls may love Nana, which is about the love lives of two girls with the same name. Monster is a popular suspense thriller about secret experiments and serial killers while Nodame Cantabile is a romance-comedy revolving around a group of music students.
However, it’s not uncommon to have supernatural elements in a manga that doesn’t usually deal with that theme as the supernatural is so closely entwined with Japanese culture.
The manga that get translated into English are mostly from the shonen (boys) and shojo (girls) categories.
English readers are only getting a tiny taste of the manga that are available in Japan.
As a parent, how would I know, without reading the manga from cover to cover, that a particular manga is adult manga?
Publishers from the start have realised parents’ concerns and have conveniently placed an “age rating” (for example, For teens 16+) at the back of each manga.
It is usually found at the bottom of the back cover.
You can read OtakuZone reviews (we also include an age rating) to get an idea too.
However, to be truly safe, it is always best to read the manga yourself to ascertain if it’s good for your children. Who knows, you may end up enjoying the manga!