Your child (or friend) has finally found something they’re interested in. Great! But it’s this weird Japanese thing. Oh no! They’re getting really into it, and they talk about it whenever possible. Now what do we do? Is this healthy for them?
Do not fear: Getting into manga is actually indicative of good character! Those who get into manga and anime are highly intelligent, and often artistic, but have no outlet for it. Many people get into manga in late elementary or early middle school, when they start to branch out their way of seeing the world, but can’t find enough books or programming that speaks to their level of intellect. In addition, with so many schools’ art programs shut down or sub-par today, manga offers a lasting, physical link to art that attracts many readers. Lasting manga enjoyment will most likely also get your child (or friend) into many creative endeavors that would make any educator proud and that they can carry with them their whole life long.
A common story among myself and all the fans I know is that from love of manga, we become interested in all sorts of arts – photography, film, advertising, painting, fashion, and their histories – and international studies, language, and music studies (Japanese specifically but not always), writing, cosplay (costuming), and clubs based on any of those (which brings one social and leadership opportunities). I don’t know a single anime and manga fan who hasn’t picked up at least one of those, and never have I seen it be with negative results. Drawing gets one to look at the world as it is, to better recreate it, and it is always a useful skill; writing gets one into books and helps with school; international studies helps bring a new group of world citizens around; Japanese and language study could get one a job; and fashion, if nothing else, could get one to dress better (worked for me). All of these often bring greater confidence.
If “costuming” concerns you, don’t worry: Dressing up as one’s favorite character allows for a safe environment in which to invent the self and try out new ways of expressing personality goals (like greater self-esteem), which may be unavailable at established community gatherings such as school or sports teams, where there is a bias of treatment toward the person “everyone already knows them to be.” Learning how to sew is a skill that will be useful one’s whole life and can be a great parent-child time opportunity and pride-builder. It also, as the father of a friend put it, “got his little girl to use power tools.”
Beyond all this, going to anime and manga conventions brings one a multitude of potential friends; I have made my best friends of many years through attendance, specifically at smaller conventions. Manga, especially boy’s manga (“shonen”), instills deep themes of friendship and the necessities of being a good person. As stories, both boys’ and girls’ manga show ways in which treating other people will or will not work, how to think critically about people and situations, and many stories focus on identity creation, debating the pros and cons of becoming different types of people. (The “good guys” almost always come out on top.) Of the many people I’ve talked to regarding this issue, literally all of them have said that manga taught them basic social skills that they missed picking up through early school years, and this helped them become much happier adults. Art, hobbies, character-building, and enhanced social skills? What’s not to love about getting into manga?
Thank you for such a well written and well informed article. Hopefully this will open up the eyes of those without a strong understanding of this specific hobby/subculture.
Just because what we enjoy isn’t the same as everyone else, doesn’t mean it’s bad or negative. I always believe that being different and unique is better than sheeping along with the rest of them.
I feel like I should pass this article along to some of my family. I’ve been in to manga since 6th or 7th grade and I’m now a college graduate (and I still buy manga every month). It was actually manga and anime that really spurred me into writing. It was also an entry point for me to get into other Japanese things, like literature, movies, fashion, and especially music (I’m a huge Visual Kei fan). But some of my family has always kind of looked at me oddly for my love of Japan and a few times they’ve actually made fun of me or put me down for it. (After all these years I still can’t explain to them the reason why VK bands dress like girls, they just won’t listen to me!).
Anyway, you would think if you had a child that loved to read, wanted to learn a foreign language, and study a new culture you would want to encourage that. After all, there are much worse things a child could get into.
Art is a universal concept, everyone can appreciate it whether it’s the art in a manga or the words in a book or the rhythm of a song. Wouldn’t it be nice if someday everybody realized that?
i agree with you guys i think i will show this to my dad not that he puts me down but he thinks its a little weird i to love anime and manga and i enjoy j-music and anime has gotten me to make many friends thank you anime and manga
That sounds like me. I found out about anime when I was 13.
i love you people. It’s true that no one really understands. This artical explains everything. why don’t more parents accept this hobby/subculture? i still get a “look” (you know the one I’m talking about) whenever i buy a new manga. But the funny thing most people who look down on us don’t understand, is that some of their favorite childhood shows are animes
so if you go back to way back when, i’ve been into this thing since birth!
My daughter was the first to start reading Manga in our family. I started making her costumes so that she can cosplay with her friends. Next thing I knew, I started reading them so I would know what she was talking about. I’m hooked on them now! I think I’ve read about 300 or so books since the beginning of summer 2010. My daughter now sings songs in Japanese, wants to try new Japanese and Asian foods and many other new things. I think this is great and it is all from getting into Manga books!
Last year we even tried to get more Manga books into the Middle School. Our problem was finding ones that were appropriate for that age level. Our Media Center person was very willing to bring more of it into the school. She had told us that the Lexile (reading level) for Manga books was higher than most of the regular books that kids that age were reading. So why not read Manga?
I think Manga has brought positive influences to my daughter’s life and mine. I just hope I don’t run out of books to read….
Once when I was at Borders in the manga section, I saw a boy around the age of ten pick up a Pokemon manga. He looked very interested in it. Then, his mother comes along and says, “No, you’re not getting that. That’s not a REAL book.” And she took him by the hand and whisked him away.
This scene made me frustrated for two reasons: 1. I’ve loved Pokemon since I was four years old (I’m sixteen now) and felt insulted that she would degrade the series that taught me about perseverance and friendship, and 2. I felt like walking right up to that lady and saying “Manga ARE real books. They have more complicated plot lines and vocabulary than any of the drivelling childrens books you would consider to be REAL books”.
The point is: Loving manga is something to be appreciated, not degraded. Don’t judge something blindly. Look into it, test out the waters, and see if you actually like it first.
thank for proving my case this is totally me
every one else who doesn’t get manga does’t get me or they think i’m obsessed
with it but really it’s like i really love the art the story lines are awesome especially magical girl manga
As a 13 year old manga lover I completely agree with this article. All my school friends (my other friends think I’m partially insane) enjoy cosplaying, watching anime, and reading manga too. I’ve learned bits and pieces of Japanese along the way and it’s helped me make new friends.
That does sound like me |D. I got into manga in yr 5, but only read a few volumes a year at this stage… now I read sooo much manga at 14… My parents consider manga to be ‘childish’ and when I tell them that the plot is a lot more complicated than a normal novel, they won’t really believe it either… At least they don’t oppose it too openly ;D and lots of my friends and classmates are interested too, so it’s fine.
Manga also teach you a lot about history, specially japanese history and culture. For example, hakuouki shingensumi, it’s about samurais called shinsengumi, and they were actually real. It’s awesome because manga many times are based on true histories with a little fantasy on it. And then you can investigate more and learn about history that probably school wouldn’t teach you. I’ve lived the experience that teachers sometimes want to say something about history and I am the only one who knows because I read it on a manga book. Manga is general culture for everyone. It’s important and it’s not a waste of time. I got into anime and then manga since a very young age (almost all my friends and cousins likes anime and manga too) and now I am studying something related to it (animation) so for more reason, reading manga or watching anime is not a waste of time but some kind of homework for me. xD
thank u so much! i completely agree i felt so excited to see people who understand i personaly am an artist inspired by anime. i cosplay and go to cons and its really good 2 see some1 write a paper 2 help others understand. this really will help my persuasive essay im writing!
I’ve been reading manga (and watching anime) since I was about 7-years-old (technically longer since I was watching Pokemon and Digimon since I was 3, but I didn’t know then!) and at 18-years now I’m fairly positive I wouldn’t be the person I am if I hadn’t gotten into these mediums. On that note: people need to understand manga is a medium, not a genre. ‘Manga’ is no more a ‘genre’ than ‘books’ are and they encompass a wide range of genres and themes, etc. – from those often recognized ones like Naruto and Bleach, or more ‘typical’ shojou manga, to detective manga, sports manga, even manga like With the Light: Raising an Autistic Child and I.S., a manga about intersexuality (born neither male nor female) – so obviously there is a plethora of things to be found and taught within this medium.
Manga is a medium of art and what’s more it’s from another cultural. That should inspire people to get into it, but sadly in our society it can do more of the opposite. Understanding and embracing other cultures is extremely important, one of the best ways to do so is through exposure to their art and stories, and what’s more is you’ll very quickly realize how easily, maybe even completely, you can relate to these characters and their lives written about by people on the other side of world! That creates more open-minded people. Manga and anime is not a catch all for learning about the Japanese culture, far from it, but it often spurs people on to look further and deeper and the things that can be taught and the character that can be built is wonderful. The fact that manga and anime, a medium of expression from one East Asian country, has so pervasively snuck into our subculture, to the point that it is recognized by mainstream culture, makes me hopeful that the same can happen for other parts of other cultures as well.
I’m not as ‘into’ manga and anime as some youth. I could count on one had the number of manga I’m truly into. Same goes for anime, unless you include Miyazaki features. I might take up two hands if I count the Japanese live-action movies and television series I enjoy. But both had a very large impact on my growing up and the continued impact in evident. Two particular manga have touched my heart very deeply (one shonen, one shojo) and what I’ve learned from them both in character and in artistic technique has been invaluable and is carried with me everyday. Manga and anime itself led me, as this article aptly says, into all kinds of artist interests. I used to when I was very young be mostly into writing. While I still love it the influence of manga/anime has turned me to visual mediums and I’m now looking to careers in film/video editing, which I may have never known I loved and had a knack for if I hadn’t wanted to make a few AMVs
Even better, I want this career to be used to expand intercultural understanding and I’ve gone on to learn Chinese and seek to study abroad and hope to learn Japanese and so much more as I plan to go into International Studies and Film Studies soon.
And I wouldn’t be anywhere without manga. I wouldn’t have certain ideals instilled in my heart and I wouldn’t have certain interests and passions in my mind. Everyone should find at least -one- manga they love, because they’ve got to! there’s just too many kinds with just too much to offer.
I’m 13 years old. I’m also apparently deemed ‘gifted’ at my school. And I love manga.
In grade 5, I was called stupid, loser-ish, ugly… you know. All the usual ‘you’re-not-good-enough-for-us’ crap. People ignored me, because I wasn’t cool enough for them.
It hurt. But it helped me grow.
Throughout my life, I was always called ’smart’. My biggest strength has always been creativity.
So, when I was left alone because no one felt like including me into anything, I began taking interest in drawing.
Don’t get me wrong – I was terrible. But I’d always loved drawing, even if I was bad at it. Concidentially, my favorite form of art was ‘the style with the cute girls, and the colorful stuff’; manga, as I later discovered.
My knees were crooked, and because I couldn’t draw arms or hands, I hid them behind the person’s back. My heads were literally deformed, and my eyes/nose/mouth weren’t set up right. My shoulders were always straight lines, my hair triangular.
In grade 6, I got into drawing Harvest Moon characters- my favorite video game since the age of 6. It was fun, and I loved the characters, but I always saw huge flaws in my versions of the drawings that I couldn’t fix.
It was a 5/6 split that year, so rather than getting paired with the older kids who’d rejected me the year before, I was put with kids who liked me, and who were just as rejected as I was. I loved it.
I really got into K-pop too, that year, and despite it being ‘different’, I’d blast some 2NE1 during class, and they’d all find it cool and catchy.
They gave me compliments on my (still terrible) drawings, and I’ll admit, it really got to my head. Looking back now, I think to myself, ‘How could I ever have considered THAT as good?!’
When I learned that, for my 7th year of elementary, I’d have to be paired with the 8th graders who’d hated me, I was, to be honest, terrified. I didn’t want to be alone, or called names. Sure, I’d survived, but I’d been miserable all year long.
So I changed schools. And yet, I’m not sure whether or not things got better.
I was baptised the ‘Japanese freak’. Because I enjoyed Japanese music, like Vocaloid, and read manga, drew manga, watched anime, and could sing in a different language, I was considered different, strange. In return, I grew defensive, suspicious, hostile, and ‘insensitive’.
Why should I be called defensive when I’m constantly hearing people mutter things about me behind my back? Don’t I have a right to stand up for myself?
My mother, and some teachers I had blame manga for my behaviour. They say I’m obsessed, and that it makes me socially awkward, and aggressive.
But why should I be social when my classmates judge me based on musical preferences, cultural preferences, even reading preferences? Why shouldn’t I be ‘aggressive’ if they jab me about certain things?
If I’d say my opinion on something- anything, whether it be economy problems, or certain unhealthy foods, or something, they’d say things such as, ‘Well, yeah, that’s because you’re like, a Japanese person.’ And then, they dared accuse ME of being racist. Um… excuse me?
I’m in grade 8, and things haven’t changed. I’m still ‘insentive’, ‘aggressive’, ‘defensive’, and hard to get along with. And yet, my friends roll my eyes when someone ever says something like that about me. They don’t seem to think so.
Through my love for manga, I’ve learned to express myself through art and fiction writing. I’ve rebuilt my self-esteem. I’ve learned to stop caring what others think, and to be able to be independent. I’m HAPPY. And yet, they still try to discourage me from manga, to convince people that something’s WRONG with me.
It doesn’t matter anymore.
I’m happy. I’ve become more open to things. I’ve learned, I’ve lived.
And that’s all that really matters.
Manga is not a bad thing, because it helped me cope.
Say what you want about it, but my opinion will never change.