Japanese manga are distinguished from their Western counterparts by the following characteristics.

Predominance of Serialization in Periodicals

It is exceedingly rare for manga in Japan to be written for publication in book form. Typically they are first serialized in installments of twenty to thirty pages and subsequently compiled as a book. Because they are originally published in magazines, they tend to be black and white. Popular works can be serialized over several years and run into dozens of volumes when they are released in book form.

Division of Target Audience by Age and Sex

Japanese manga can be divided into the following categories depending on the age of the audience targeted by the magazines in which they appear: The first category includes children's magazines (yonenshi), teen magazines (shonenshi), and "young" magazines (yangushi, also known as seinenshi) which attract readers from their late teens to their late twenties. The second group includes adult magazines (known as seinenshi, where seinen refers to adults rather than young people, or otonashi) which are intended for a more mature audience with no upper age limit. Manga catering mainly to women are further divided by age into young-girls manga (shojoshi) and "Ladies" comics (known according to the Japanese pronunciation of the English "ladies" or "redizu.") Women-oriented manga are marked by sophisticated character descriptions and a distinctive grammar or frame syntax.

.......the manga readers



.......businessmen, schoolboys, young men and women...readers come in all shapes and sizes

Narrative Sophistication

So-called sutourii-man, or narrative manga, are much more developed in Japan than one- or four-frame comics, reaching a level of sophistication which has often warranted comparison with film. While the main compositional element in film is the cut (or articulation), in manga this function is fulfilled by the frame, or koma. The syntax of koma arrangement is highly sophisticated, making possible a seemless visualization of the narrative. While Western narrative comics tend to be theme-driven, Japanese sutourii-man privilege character development. In Japanese manga the theme is made apparent through the words and actions of the characters, such that the reader is able to experience the theme through a process of psychological identification with the protagonists. It is the success of this method which accounts for the extraordinary popularity of the manga genre.

Terms

Comics in Japan are referred to as "manga." A certain inferiority complex vis a vis the West has resulted in a tendency among many publishers to use the term komikku, the Japanized version of the English "comic." But this term has not taken hold among readers in Japan, who are much more likely to use the Japanese, manga. Although usually rendered in the Japanese phonetic script known as katakana, the word is actually composed of two Chinese ideographs meaning "playful (or 'capricious') "images" and originally referred to satiric or clever pictures. But the dramatic development of contemporary manga beginning in the late 1960s brought an expansion of subject matter beyond satire and comedy. It was in order to encompass this greater range of subject matter that the term began to be written in phonetic script to avoid the narrower implications of the Sino-Japanese ideograms. In the West as well, Japanese manga are often referred to using the original Japanese term written in Roman letters in order to set them apart as a unique and important genre.

.......a homeless man sells manga on the street