Anime: Anime is the Japanese abbreviation for the transliteration of "animation". Outside of Japan, it refers specifically to Japanese animation. Many manga titles are made into anime television series or films.
Aka-hon: Meaning “red book,” the word describes manga sold shortly after the Second World War in books having red covers.
Bishoujo: Bishoujo combines bi, meaning beautiful, and shoujo . or young girl. These fantasy girls are frequently as courageous and militant as they are cute. For more than 20 years, Japan has held an annual bishoujo beauty contest.
Bishounen: Bishounen translates as "beautiful boy". Such figures are usually androgynous—with feminine facial features but slender male frames—and engage in homosexual or sexually ambiguous behavior. (See Yaoi manga below.)
Chibi: In Japanese, chibi means “short person” or “small child”. Chibi characters, such as Sailor Moon’s daughter, Chibiusa, typically have childlike features, with large eyes and open expressions. They are often used as mascots. Chibi is sometimes confused with the super deformed style of caricature, in which certain general features are exaggerated to an extreme. (See Super deformed below.)
Comiket: Short for the Comic Market, held twice a year in Tokyo since December, 1975. CM is the largest comics convention in the world. Some 35,000 sellers offer self-published manga from doujinshi to more than half a million attendees. The convention organizers supply catalogs in advance and set a few basic rules—among them, no running and no photographing of cosplayers without their express permission. (see doujinshi and cosplay below.)
Cosplay: Derived from “costume play”, cosplay refers to the practice of dressing up as a character from manga, anime, video games or tokusatsu . or live-action film or TV. Less often cosplayers dress up as characters from fantasy movies, or pop bands. (see tokusatsu below.)
Doujinshi: Doujinshi are self-published manga drawn by amateur artists working alone or as part of a doujinshi circle. Many well-known mangaka have launched their career by taking part in a doujinshi competition.
Etchi: Along with ecchi . refers to erotic manga.
Gekiga: Manga originating in the 1950s notable for containing darker/more mature themes and imagery, which are more grounded in reality than other genres. Aimed at an older audience. The magazine Garo is a key publisher of gekiga.
Giga: Funny drawings, caricature.
Gensaku-sha: The word for someone who writes the storyline behind a manga series, which is then drawn by a mangaka .
Hentai: Pornographic manga featuring sexually explicit imagery. Hentai includes yaoi and yuri manga, which depict homosexual male and lesbian pairings respectively. (see yaoi and yuri below.)
Josei: Meaning simply “female”, josei manga is marketed to women. Compared to shoujo manga, which is geared towards teens, josei manga features adult women as characters and more realistic romances. A famous example is Honey and Clover. The male counterpart to josei is seinen manga. (See seinen below.)
Kawaii: Japanese for cute, kawaii comes from two kanji meaning “can love”.
Ke Ke Ke: indicates laughter, much like “he he he.”
Kodomo: Short for kodomomuke anime . which means “animation directed towards children”, kodomo is manga and anime for the youngest audiences often contains a moral about honesty, perseverance, courage and so forth. Famous examples include Doraeomon . the futuristic cat-like robot officially named Japan’s anime ambassador this past spring.
Komikku: Japanese version of the word "comic". In Japan, manga and komikku are used interchangeably.
Manga: Formed from the kanji man . meaning “lax” or “unintentional”, and ga, or pictures, manga translates roughly as "informal picture". It applied to Japanese picture stories, comic Strips, caricatures and animated films, or anime. Having the same etimology, manhwa refers specifically to South Korean manga and manhua, to Chinese comics.
Mangaka: In Japanese, - ka, as a suffix, implies craftsmanship or authorship and so a mangaka is an artist who draws manga (a writer who creates just the story line is referred to as a gensaku-sha ). Most professional mangaka learn their trade at art college, manga school or through an apprenticeship. A few are self-taught and come to the attention of publishers by way of contests. Famous mangaka include Gosho Aoyama, the all-women group CLAMP and Rumiko Takahashi.
Manga kissa: A manga café, where customers pay to read manga by the hour.
Mangazasshi: The name for manga magazines in Japan, which appear weekly, bi-weekly or monthly, and offer individual chapters of some 25 serialized stories at a time. Because they are phone-book thick, they are also called "directories". Mangazasshi cost £1 to £2 and are printed cheap paper; most readers, when they are finished, throw them away. Popular series, however, are often later repackaged as paperback graphic novels. Well-known mangazasshi include Weekly Shonen Magazine . Weekly . Shonen Jump . Young King Ours and Shojo Comic . (see tankoubon below.).
Magical Girl: A sub-genre of fantasy manga and anime epitomized by series such as Sailor Moon and Wedding Peach. The heroines are young girls possessing super powers who fight evil in the world. In Japan, magical girls are known as majokko, or witch girls.
Manhua: Chinese comics, published for the most part in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unlike manga, manhua typically comes in full color.
Manhwa: Manga from South Korea. Unlike Japanese manga, manhwa are read left-to-right, like western books. Subcategories include sunjeong manhwa for girls, sonyeon manhwa for boys and seongin manhwa for adults.
Majokko: The term literally means “witch girl” but is translated as “magical girl” in the west. See Magical Girl above.
Mecha: This term refers to the massive robotic vehicles and machines—frequently armed with high-tech weapons—that dominate some manga series. Known as “robot anime” in Japan, the genre is one the oldest and most popular among manga fans. The Gundam series, for an example, ongoing since 1979, fuels a 50 billion+ yen franchise.
Moe: The term literally means “budding”. In addition to big eyes, flat faces, youthful hair styles and childlike bodies, moe characters are typically naïve and suffer from some endearing weakness, such as illness or clumsiness. Moe is different from kawaii. Tohru Honda from Fruits Basket is a stereotypical example of the moe style.
Otaku: In the west, the term describes obsessive manga or anime fans and has further connotations of being a geek. In Japanese slang, it refers simply to avid fans of any topic or hobby.
Rensai . Rensai refers to any serialized story, such as those appearing in mangazasshi .
Shoujo . Manga for, as the word translates, young girls, typically aged 10 to 18 years old. These titles tend to feature romantic tales, delicately drawn with beautiful, doe-eyed heroines and handsome boys, surrounded by flowers and stars. Instead of the action that fills shounen manga, shoujo explores the inner lives of its characters.
Shoujo-ai . Shoujo is different from shoujo-ai . or girls' love, manga, which has lesbian themes and is similar to yuri .
Shounen . The counterparts to shoujo . shounen targets teen boys. The stories emphasize action and fighting, often against monsters or dark powers. The protagonists are normal boys-turned-superhero, who must save the world.
Shounen-ai . Meaning "boy love", shounen-ai is an outdated Japanese expression for manga featuring homosexual themes. Unlike yaoi manga, shounen-ai focuses more on romance and shows only suggested sexual content. Another term for shounen-ai is tanbi-kei .
Seinen . Translating as “young man”, seinen describes a sub-genre of manga and anime targeted at adult men, featuring a wide range of artistic styles and themes. It is the male equivalent of josei. Famous examples include Chobits . xxxHolic and Rozen Maiden .
Super Deformed . A style of Japanese caricature that involves extreme exaggeration. Characters typically have short, stubby limbs and oversized heads. This mode of drawing—which is different from chibi in concept although the results can be similar—is sometimes used to show strong emotion.
Tankoubon . The serialized chapters that appear in mangazasshi are later collected together in tankoubon . paperback anthologies of a complete storyline. A popular series may ultimately appear in 15 or more tankoubon volumes. Unlike mangazasshi, which are cheaply produced and frequently disposed, tankoubon use higher-quality paper and are meant for collecting. Special editions are sometimes packaged with free merchandising items—figurines and the like—related to the series. Aizoubon are limitied-run, very high-quality volumes of the most popular titles; bunkoban are smaller and thicker than tankoubon, also on higher-quality paper, whereas wideban volumes are a larger format. In the west, tankoubon is frequently translated as “graphic novel” and Viz Media releases bunkoban as VIZBIG editions.
Tanpen . Tanpen are stand-alone short stories--usually published in special edition issues of manga magazines--alongside rensai, or serial stories.
Toilet paper comparison . Manga is ubiquitous in Japan—so much so that a reporter once quipped that more paper went to comics than to loo paper. The remark spread quickly during the 80s and still appears in German articles about manga today. In fact, the paper goods company Banbix introduced manga loo rolls in 2007. Each sheet features cartoons drawn by mangaka Yakumi Tsuru.
Yaoi . This term, used primarily outside of Japan, describes manga that features explicit male-male homosexual content. It is, however, distinct from gay manga in that yaoi is drawn by women and targeted at women. In Japan, the genre is called "Boys' Love" or "BL" for short. Popularized by doujinshi artists in the 1970s, the term derives it from yama nashi, ochi nashi, imi nashi . or "no climax, no resolution, no meaning." The phrase parodies the traditional Japanese story structure: Ki-shou-ten-ketsu . or “introduction, development, transition and conclusion.”
Yon koma . Also called 4- koma, yon koma are short manga, normally limited to four frames—one image for ki, shou, ten and ketsu (see above). Though often light-hearted, they can be serious and run vertically, finishing at the bottom of the page. Like American comic strips, yon koma appear in daily papers, as well as in mangazasshi.
Yuri . The word yuri means simply “lily” but, as a sub-genre of manga, it refers to stories that focus on lesbian relationships. These stories can feature either the emotional or sexual aspects of the relationship.
