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Abstract: Although manga constitute a massive transcultural flow, they are extremely
diverse as far as genre and content are concerned. This article attempts to bridge these
differences by highlighting phenomenological patterns within popular manga: by
bracketing content, the author focuses on the experience of reading manga, thereby
considering the medial aspect of these works. By examining a diverse corpus of
contemporary popular series (Bleach, Death Note, Fruits Basket, and Kitchen Princess),
the article pays attention to elements such as reading rhythm, contrast, fragmentation, and
page tabularity, in order to pave the way for future study of manga’s place in the
contemporary medial ethos.
Another possible reason for manga’s transnational appeal which has been put
forward is what Iwabuchi Koichi refers to as its mukokuseki character, or cultural
odourlessness: Iwabuchi points out that characters in manga, as well as in anime, are
designed in such a way that their appearance does not evoke Japanese ethnicity (Iwabuchi
2002, 28; 2008, 41), and he argues that this absence of national traits is a factor in
Japanese popular culture’s appeal overseas (Ibid. 2002, 33, 94). It has, however, also been
argued that there exist other forms of cultural odour in manga and anime, which include
direct references to Japanese culture (such as traditions or dietary habits), but also include
“not only different approaches to design, action, or narrative, but also different forms of
representing gender relations and even different value systems as well” (Napier 2007,
With this goal in mind, I will examine and give examples from a voluntarily
diverse corpus, described below. I have, however, chosen to limit my scope to
mainstream manga, as opposed to auteur or alternative manga. The reason for this
restriction is that, while alternative manga can and do retain characteristics pertaining to
the mainstream, they also by definition stray from its standards: as Paul Ricœur points
out, only a regulated imagination can be reflected upon, as deviation and transgression
are only feasible against a background of norms (Ricœur 1980, 19). My aim here will be
precisely to outline some of those norms.
I have chosen to focus on four series, selected because they represent strong
generic currents within the manga flow. They are either ongoing or recently ended, and
have all sold well in Japan and abroad. A full description would take up too much space
here, but a quick overview of the series’ respective contents will clearly highlight how
1
Publication dates refer to the initial Japanese run, not the publication of translated books.
2
Nekketsu shōnen is a combat genre which is characteristically features a young, passionate
protagonist, who faces increasingly powerful foes in his quest (Ferrand and Langevin 2006: 30-31). Other
series pertaining to this genre are Toriyama Akira’s Dragon Ball and Kishimoto Masashi’s Naruto.
One of the main characteristics of the manga reading experience is its quick
rhythm. Of course, the speed at which one reads is subjective and varies according to
context and intent, but there are elements within all comics which can aim to influence
the “natural” (i.e. immersed but casual, as opposed to analytic) manner in which the
panels and pages are read (Baetens and Lefèvre 1993, 53). Comics are already prone to a
swifter reading than isolated images, for the mere reason that they are meant to be read as
part of a series, and thus always push the reader onwards, towards the next panel (Ibid.,
20; Groensteen 1991, 46), but elements can be identified within our corpus that
encourage a comparatively accelerated rhythm.
Going beyond the merely textual to include the visual and thereby examining the
full diegetic information conveyed by the panels, we can find several points where the
3
Selected books were: Fruits Basket vol. 19 (14% silent or one-word panels), Death Note vol. 2
(21%), Kitchen Princess vol. 1 (26%), and Bleach vol. 21 (31%).
Of course, this technique of spreading the diegetic content over more panels and
pages is most likely not done with the conscious intention of speeding up the reading
process. Ironically enough, it is meant to slow down the visual narration, for dramatic
reasons: either to enhance the suspense (“Will Ichigo still be alive when Nel finally
reaches him?”), or to prolong and highlight the moment by making it literally take up
more space, thereby ensuring that the reader gives it due attention and importance. In
short, the objective of this technique is to enhance emotional response in general.
However, it is quite arguable that, in this case, slowing down the narration does not bring
about a similar change in reading rhythm. Keeping in mind that I am only concerned here
4
As a reminder, McCloud establishes five viable types of transitions in comics: moment-to-
moment, action-to-action, subject-to-subject, scene-to-scene, and aspect-to-aspect. Attempting to apply
McCloud’s system to the corpus proved quite challenging: the fine distinction between moment-to-moment
and action-to-action transitions was food for hesitation, as were cases when subject-to-subject transitions
threatened to coincide with aspect-to-aspect ones. Not to mention panels where the visual content was
equivalent to an “aspect,” but which contained text balloons (which logically are the equivalent of an
action, inasmuch as speech is an action). I circumvented these difficulties to accommodate the scope of this
paper (as we will see in the next section), but examining these finer points and learning from them would
prove to be an interesting and useful task for the future.
I have just mentioned, in passing, expressive backgrounds, which also hasten the
reading rhythm, but for different reasons. Expressive backgrounds are a staple in manga,
particularly in shōjo, where emotions are consistently brought to the foreground, and are
crystallized in the form of flowers, bubbles, flashes of light, or abstract evocative shapes
(Gravett 2004, 79; Schodt 1983, 89). This phenomenon is certainly at play in Fruits
Basket and Kitchen Princess. A similar phenomenon arises in shōnen such as Bleach,
where movement lines are greatly exaggerated during battle scenes to emphasize violence
and/or movement, or where imaginary lines converge to highlight a focal point within a
panel. The result is that the main information of the panel is highlighted through
overdetermination, and is thus more easily picked up by the eye.
Stylistic ruptures such as the ones mentioned in the above section have another
effect, in addition to increasing the reading speed: they create an effect of contrast. This
is, of course, implied in the very use of the term “rupture”. But this type of contrast has
important consequences regarding the phenomenology of manga. Indeed, every time such
a rupture occurs, it signifies a shift in register, a tiny destabilization (even after the code
has been assimilated by the reader) that is equivalent to a fragmentation, not of the
content, but of the manga as a whole. Indeed, if a comic strip’s effectivity relies on
graphic and semantic co-dependency and reciprocal overdetermination, i.e. iconic
solidarity (Groensteen 1999, 21), then these stylistic discrepancies disrupt the flow on the
visual level (and arguably on the semantic one as well). These recurring ruptures are not
5
Selected books were: Fruits Basket vol. 19, Death Note vol. 11, Bleach vol. 21, and Kitchen
Princess vol. 10.
6
See note 3 regarding the difficulties of applying McCloud’s method as it is described in
Understanding Comics.
7
I chose to consider a transition between a panel showing a character alone and a panel featuring
the same character accompanied or in a group as action-to-action.
8
Subject-to-subject transitions still appeared to be the dominant form of transition between
dissimilar panels.
9
Selected books were: Death Note vol. 1,2,11, 12; Kitchen Princess, vol. 1, 10; Fruits Basket, vol.
1, 3, 19, 23; and Bleach, vol. 1, 21, 31.
10
I only took into accounts panels where the scission of the body was striking and significant, e.g.
when half the face of the character was left out, when only bodily extremities (feet, hands) were visible, or
when the torso was visible, but not the head. Thus, I did not count panels where the characters were framed
in an American shot, i.e. cut off at mid-thigh, as this type of framing is quite conventional. Furthermore, I
left out panels where the facial expression was fully visible but part of the chin or forehead was missing.
Finally, I did not count panels where the character’s head was only visible from behind, or where the face
was obstructed by a shadow or an object. It is fully recognized that this method relies on subjective
decisions to a certain degree; however, the aim was to obtain a ballpark figure, not precise statistics.
11
Fruits Basket, vol. 1 only counted 87 fragments, and vol. 3 had only 47; however, later volumes
saw a striking rise in fragments, with 195 for vol. 19 and 149 for vol. 23. It must be pointed out that Fruits
Basket evolved considerably throughout its run, both graphically and from the point of view of layout and
sequencing.
12
Or an average of around 0.8 fragments per single page.
Before moving on to the next section, we can see that Death Note, in spite of
previous differences, has been somewhat reconciled with the rest of the corpus: it was
just as concerned by the analysis of transitions and segmentations as the other series
were. While Death Note does remain on the margins of mainstream manga, I believe
these last two common elements are sufficient for it to be characterized by a similar
phenomenology, which I will now attempt to present and analyze.
14
See, for example, Pièges (vol.2), p. 25, where we find an unmotivated crop of a character’s feet.
15
It should be noted that Spirou et Fantasio has gone through other authors and changes since
then, and that its latest instalment to date, Alerte aux Zorkons (2010) by Velhmann and Yoann, seems to
move away from manga aesthetics.
In order to understand why this is so, it must first be clarified in what sense the
term “tabularity” is intended here. Conventionally, it is opposed to linearity, but it has
often been noted that, even in the case of prosaic literature, neither notion is absolute, and
that there is room for shifting and interaction between the two (Vandendorpe 1999, 41-
69). Of course, panels in comics are sequential, therefore linear, by definition, but there
are degrees of tabularity which can coexist with linearity; this is, in fact, particularly true
for comics, because, as Benoît Peeters points out, they must fit their sequentiality within
the confines of a tabular page (Peeters 1998, 51) (it must also be noted that the panel is a
somewhat tabular entity to begin with). Indeed, the page can always be seized at a glance,
particularly when laden with images (Lamarre 2009, 288); this is even more true of the
manga page, given its comparatively smaller format. However, the manga page’s
tabularity also stems from more complex factors, partially from the intertwining of the
elements examined in the previous section, but also, as we shall now see, from manga’s
particular style of layout.
The relation between tabularity/linearity and layout has been an important focus
in comics studies. Regarding manga and our corpus, one particularity literally leaps from
the page: the irregularity of what Groensteen has dubbed the multiframe, the multiple
frames which compose a comic (Groensteen 1999, 38-39). As one turns the pages of a
manga, one notices that no consecutive layout is the same: pages differ not just by the
number of panels (which can range from one to eight), but by the parallelism and
This instability informs tabularity to a certain degree. Indeed, the loss of margins,
combined with irregular, diagonal, sometimes overlapping panels, such as those found in
manga, leads to a diminished importance of isolated panels, and thus an increase in
tabularity. As Thomas Lamarre writes:
The manga page tends toward a distributive field, on which panels and their
accompanying hints of subjective positions are dispersed and dehierarchized. […]
The material limit of manga is the force of black ink across white paper, and the
reveries of love and the lust of battle tend toward a complete dispersal of panels
and of forms, into swirls, splashes, splotches, and dashes of ink. […] The edge of
the manga page does not really frame things in the manner of a camera shot or
window. (Lamarre 2009, 289)
One can easily establish a link between the exuberant expressive content
described by Lamarre and the overdetermined information analyzed in the first section:
panel layout enhances manga’s already impressive expressive abilities, and is thus linked
to accelerated reading. Again, this exuberance applies less to Death Note, but even in the
latter case, irregular layouts and disappearing margins are present: the instability is also
there. Thus, in the absence of a stable page content, the unity of reference becomes the
page itself, and not the panel. Sequentiality does not vanish, of course: the manga page is
dehierarchized (some might even say messy), but it is certainly not incoherent or chaotic.
A reading order of panels and/or text bubbles prevails, yet its dominance is lessened
considerably.
Faced with multiple fragments, the reader must put them back together, and he
must do so on the level of at least the page, in order to extract meaning and form a viable
diegetic world, or storyworld (Herman 2002, 9) within his mind: he needs to connect the
segmented hand to the rest of its body, fill in the missing half of the face, and combine
the dissimilar panels in order to create a world from it. Indeed, even though it has been
argued that comics panels do not merely select and frame a fragment of reality in the
manner a film camera does (as mentioned in the previous quote from Lamarre), and that
therefore a panel does not refer one to an external reality in a centrifugal manner (Peeters
1998, 23), it has been counter-specified that what is not shown can also play a crucial role
in the comprehension of a story (Baetens and Lefèvre 1993, 26); I would add that it can
play a role in the phenomenology, as well. Thus, the sectioned hand demands to be
connected to something else, even if only in mind; the panels showing dissimilar content
demand to be put in some kind of relation to one another, and the separated similar panels
reach out to one another. The between-panel spaces are here thought of as a space of
connection: the reader does not provide content to fill in the blanks, rather he connects
It becomes useful, at this point and from this perspective, to think of the between-
panel spaces as folds, a notion borrowed from Deleuze’s writings on Leibniz. Indeed, the
fold manages to evoke multiplicity within unity, contrast without rupture, difference
within proximity (Deleuze 1988, 5, 42). The fold is where meaning emerges from. Thus,
the phenomenology of manga is one characterized by folds, it is a medium where
structures shift, where bodies and styles are seemingly broken, and yet where the fabric
continues to maintain its cohesiveness. Just like the fragmented manga page, mainstream
manga constitute a flow, a somewhat uneven one to be sure (Death Note never will
completely fit in with the rest), but the nature of a flow is precisely to allow for
fluctuations. In a strange paradox, unity stems from fragmentation, which in the end
constitutes the ultimate constant of the manga reading experience.
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