Manga and comic both are the words used for a visual novel.
And both are very popular worldwide which is evident from the number of superhero movies based on comic and many anime based on manga.
Some years ago comics were the only things popular in the Western audience but in recent years they had also acquired as much popularity as comic.
In Japan only about a million copies of manga are sold per month and comic in a sense are bought as collectables.
Why comic and manga are popular
There are many reason for both of them getting that much attention worldwide some of the reasons are same , some are different for both.
I will list down all those reason below.
Adaptation into Movies and Anime : Manga Comic
The biggest reason for the popularity of comic like DC and marvel can be given to their movie adaptation. In terms of revenue and reach movies reach and far wider audience than comics.
But these movies makes the audience curious to know more about their source the comic.
And just like the comic has a movie adaptation manga also has anime.
Many of the popular comic in Japan got adapted into anime and those anime were the ones who became popular among the eastern and western audience and through anime fans came to know about manga.
Which were in a time only associated with Japan.
To know the Backstory Of Characters : Manga Comic
As I said above that manga and comic both has taken a big spot on the television screen but most of the time in order to make a long comic into a movie most of the story and character background has to be left out in order to make a 3 hour film.
Even more for anime if the manga is of 100 or more chapter and has to put all that in 13-14 episode.
So people who love the anime also reads those comic manga to know all about there favourite character.
Caters To a Very Wide Audience : Manga
Manga and comic both now are made for a very wide audience from children to adults and especially manga which people of all age group loves.
You can find manga like crayon shinchan , pokemon which are made keeping children in mind to death note and Naruto which are mostly caters to the adults.
Manga has many genre and each genre has many sub genre so if you love sports there’s a manga for that, if you love cooking there’s a manga for that and even if you are a naughty person there is a manga for that also (ecchi).
Easily Available Online To Read : Manga Comic
About a decade ago if you wanted to read a comic or manga you had to buy a hardcopy from a store but now with the emergence of streaming services like Netflix , crunchyroll, Amazon Prime video and many more it’s much easier to read manga, anime and comics.
You can read manga comic for free and some services offer a monthly fee for reading as many as you like which is still very cheap compared to actually buying hard copy.
And as a result many more people has started reading them which in turn causes that popularity.
They are Fun And Entertaining To Read : Comic Manga
What more reason do you need other than this to start reading manga and comics.
They are fun to read and able to make us forget all our wories and in today’s lifestyle people do need a way to forget tension and that’s why they read manga manhwa or comic.
And this also results in the popularity.
Manga Vs Comic
So now we have understood that both manga and comic both are very popular worldwide but among them which one is better we will look at it now.
Firtly what is manga and comic.
So manga are the name given to the black and white coloured graphical novels which are written from right to left.
There is not any particular age group for whom it’s specifically written, you can find manga for age 4 to old age person .
In manga there is huge variety of genre from superhero, sports, ecchi, romance, action and many more and these genre each has many sub genre.
Comic as we all know are western graphical novel they firstly started as black and white but now a days they are mostly coloured they are written in English therefore their panels are from left to right.
There are not many genre in comic as far as I know. Mostly you will find action, superhero and romance in them.
They are mostly written for kids and there is adult comic who is only for 18+ .
So I will put down the things which make both of them different from each other
- Stories
- Japanese heroes vs American comic hero
- Charactets
- Way of writing
- Lenght
- Focus on details
- Easiness to follow the story
- Cultures they present
Stories
In terms of stories manga and comic both have their unique taste.
Comic are mostly based on superheroes characters like Superman Batman, spiderman. I’m not saying all comic are based on superheroes but the are the most widely known.
Comics don’t have a chronological order of story going on maybe if their sales go down they bring a new superhero, send the Mc to other universe like the time when captain America became an Hydra agent, Avengers turning into Hulks and this all make it overwhelming for a new reader.
They actually don’t have a story after every randomly comic they make a completely new story which don’t relate to previous story.
But when we talk about manga they all are written in an chronological order even if a manga has 1000 chapters if you read from the beginning you can easily known all about that manga.
Japanese hero vs American Comic hero
In comic the hero are always overpowered character they start from a point from where they can develop like Superman, spiderman, Thor, etc.
There is no scope for them working hard to improve and in order to make story interesting rather then making hero train the story brings an even strong villian.
In Japanese manga the hero never starts off as OP, only in a few genre where the mc has to be op like in isekai, but most of the hero as a scope for development.
The best example of this is Goku we all know how he was just a child when dragon ball started first he had trained his martial arts under master roshi.
He kept on training then even till now in dragon ball super Goku is still training to become even stronger.
And there are many manga where we see this in one piece, naruto, fairy tail, my hero academia, one punch man, bleach and many more.
Characters
In comics the main focus has always been given to the MC, on his story his powers his fights and so on.
But we never or Seldom do we get to know the story about any other side characters.
Only after that side character takes place of the hero only then we know more about him.
This we can see in case of batman x Robin , where Batman was a hero not much was known about Robin his story background only starts after Batman leaves and he become the savior of Gotham.
In manga however we see the back story of every side characters as well as the story of villian and manga anime do it the best.
By telling us the reason of villian sometimes we get confused if the villian should fail or not.
Way of Writing
This is the basic differeence among the two.
Manga are always written from right to left and in order of upward to downward .
And in manga the dialogue is usual very less and the most of the feeling is given for the audience to feel.
Comic are written in English therefore from right to left.
There paneling is not well defined sometime a panel takes a huge page with out any reason. And comic do dialogue very poorly sometimes the voice Bubble of a single character in one dialogue could have 70-80 words.
This make it look very boring and unattractive.
Lenght
Comics are always much much shorter in length than compared to manga.
Comic maybe be in form of a chapter or a book and another book will will have another story.
Manga can go for more than a 1000 chapters to complete a single story but it’s not borig in anyway.
Focus on details
This one can be understood very easily from the image down below.
Easiness to follow through story
Manga are always written in a chronological order it can have many season but if a reader wants to know the story he can just start from the chapter 1 and can know all and everything about the hero, the story creation and background.
Whereas in comic the story doesn’t have any order which was the first in the series which is the last it’s very confusing, no story link to each other.
Of a author was changed the Superman could change from Superman to super hulk, captain America becomes a hydra agent in another universe and so many story which do not make sense.
So in simple words manga are very easy to follow in terms of story, Mc backgrounds and everything.
Cultures they show
Manga can show us the culture from all around the world, Japanese, American, Indian, Korean, Chinese, norfic culture and so on.
Comic as they are based in America mostly show is the culture of America.
Why Manga are better than comic
In my opinion manga are always better than manga . And from the above difference I have given above you can understand why I say so.
And I will list all those reason down below.
- Better story
- Great character development
- Easy to follow
- Awesome design and dynamic look
- Connects with all age group
- Have content for all age group
- Manga are the core of anime
- There are thousands of manga which is much more than comics
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