Manga, Anime and Visual Art Culture Study Guide

Vocabulary flashcards covering core Japanese comic and animation terminology, critical cultural theories, and key historical figures from Craig Norris, Chapter 13.

Manga

Japanese comic books.

Anime

Japanese animation.

Soft power

Cultural influence that creates interest, respect, or admiration for a country.

Manga-ka

A manga author or artist.

Yonkoma

Four-panel manga, usually a short gag or humorous story.

Story manga

Longer, novel-like manga that uses cinematic techniques such as close-ups, different angles, and varied panel sizes.

Kodomomuke manga

Manga aimed mainly at children; commonly associated with a cute graphic style.

Gekiga

More mature, serious, realistic, and graphic manga, historically associated with older readers and working-class or countercultural audiences.

Shonen manga

Manga traditionally aimed at boys under 18; commonly associated with action and male protagonists.

Shojo manga

Manga traditionally aimed at girls under 18 or a broader female readership; commonly associated with romance, fantasy, and emotional themes.

Tankobon

Paperback volumes that collect manga chapters previously serialized in magazines.

Kamishibai

Picture-card storytelling performances popular in the early postwar period.

Kashihonya

Book-rental shops where readers could cheaply rent manga.

Akabon

Cheap postwar manga books known as 'red books' because of the red ink used in printing.

OEL manga

Original English-Language manga: manga-style works created by non-Japanese artists for non-Japanese audiences.

Dojinshi

Fan or amateur manga, often using or parodying existing characters and settings.

Scanlator

A fan who scans, translates, and distributes manga online.

IPR

Intellectual Property Rights - legal rights connected to ownership and control of creative works.

Manhwa

Korean comics influenced by or associated with manga-style visual culture.

Manhua

Chinese comics influenced by or associated with manga-style visual culture.

Media effects

The idea that consuming media can directly cause changes in audience behavior.

Orientalism

Reducing Japanese culture to simplified stereotypes or binary oppositions between Japan/the East and the West.

Essentialism

Treating a culture as if it has a single fixed set of defining characteristics and ignoring internal diversity or outside influences.

Transnational

Crossing national boundaries and involving multiple cultures, industries, creators, or audiences.

Domestication

Adapting or presenting a foreign cultural product so it becomes easier for another audience to accept or understand.

Hybrid

A cultural product shaped by a mixture of influences, such as Japanese and Western styles or creators.

Moral panic

A strong public fear that a group, behavior, or form of media threatens society, often based on exaggerated or simplified claims.

Osamu Tezuka

One of the most important figures in manga history, whose works like New Treasure Island and Astro Boy popularized cinematic techniques and established long-form story manga.

Year Twenty-Four Group

Female artists in the 1970s who transformed shojo manga by introducing more complex emotional and social themes.

Tsutomu Miyazaki

Known as the 'Otaku Murderer', whose 1989 trial after murdering four young girls contributed to a major moral panic around manga and anime fans.