Manga vs. Magazine

[Sakunyuusha]

Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine and I've got to vent. :wetland:

DISCLAIMERS:
1) THIS IS NOT TARGETED AT ANYONE IN PARTICULAR!
2) I AM NOT JAPANESE!
3) I AM NOT AN AUTHORITY ON ANYTHING JAPANESE!
4) WHAT I WRITE BELOW, HOWEVER CONVINCING OR STRONGLY BELIEVED IN, COULD BE COMPLETELY WRONG. TAKE IT FOR WHAT IT IS: A SEMI-INFORMED PERSON RANTING AT OTHER SEMI-INFORMED PEOPLE!
5) I AM PREPARED TO BE SCHOOLED, BUT I WOULD RATHER BE POLITELY CORRECTED, PARTICULARLY AS I HAVE TARGETED/ATTACKED NOBODY IN PARTICULAR. THANK YOU.

~Manga vs. Magazine~​

In Japanese:

• 漫画 (manga) is a term which means "comic" or "comics" in English.
• The Japanese word for a collection of these comics into a bound book is 単行本 (tankoubon).
• The Japanese word for erotic comics is エロ漫画 (eromanga), meaning "erotic" (エロ) "comics" (漫画).
• 雑誌 (zasshi) or the loan word マガジン (magajin) are two words which both mean the same thing in English: "magazine".

In American English:

• The term manga is used in place of tankoubon to mean "Japanese comicbook", referring to the whole comicbook and not to any particular story, or comic, inside of it. For example, in the American English sentence "Check out all of that manga!", the American English speaker could not be saying this in reference to Japanese-style comics spraypainted onto a brick wall (although he SHOULD be able to!); but he could be saying it in reference to Japanese-style comicbooks lining a store shelf.
• as stated, the term tankoubon is not used in American English. Instead, speakers misapply the term manga.
• there is no official term for erotic comics in American English. I tend to use the letter "H" in place of "ero," e.g. H-doujinshi and H-manga and H-games instead of erodoujinshi and eromanga and eroge.
• there is no term for "Japanese magazines" other than simply saying that: "Japanese magazines"!

In Hentai, and on Akiba-Online:

• manga magazines is the term used to refer to those magazines which contain manga inside of them. They are NOT "mangas" in the English sense of the word (i.e. they are not tankoubons). These publications are made from flimsy loose paper just like our magazines; and their color pages utilize the same ink as do other professional magazines. It is therefore:
  o correct to refer to the stories inside of these publications as manga (漫画) if what you were referring to was the innards of the publication (and not the entire 400-page bound object) and what you meant when you used the word "manga" was "comics"
  x incorrect to refer to the entire publication as a "manga" (tankoubon), as it is neither a manga (its contents, plural, are manga) nor a tankoubon: it's not a bound book! It is a magazine! (マガジン,雑誌)
• This is the forum for hentai tankoubons. (What Americans might think of as "hentai mangas" or "Japanese pornographic comicbooks".)
• This is the forum for hentai magazines. (What Americans might think of as "Japanese pornographic comics printed sequentially in a periodical")

Conclusion:

• This is a hentai manga magazine, but this is a hentai manga tankoubon. There is a difference!
• It is not only possible, it is common for artists' works to be printed one chapter at a time in a hentai magazine and to then at a later date be compiled into a hentai "manga" (ref. tankoubon). Often times those tankoubons are printed by the same publishing firm as the one responsible for the printing of the magazine(s) in which the book's chapters were first displayed.
• If Japanese eromanga magazines were instead of actual women, they would be similar to America's "dirty magazines" like Playboy or Penthouse.
• There is no such thing in America which is analogous to eromanga compilations (i.e. H-tankoubons). The closest thing we have are anthologies of comics (e.g. Garfield, Calvin & Hobbes, Iron Man, SuperMan, etc). You know that book of The Far Side you've got at home? That's the closest thing we Americans have got to a tankoubon. Now imagine if there were such a thing as American-made porno comics, and imagine if all of the ones by a particular artist were compiled into the same book. That's what Akiba-Online's manga tankoubons forum is for. It's not for the magazines!

 

[elgringo14]

I have some comments on your nice post.

there is no official term for erotic comics in American English. I tend to use the letter "H" in place of "ero," e.g. H-doujinshi and H-manga and H-games instead of erodoujinshi and eromanga and eroge.

We western people use the slang word "hentai" for this stuff, like "hentai manga" or "hentai anime". Though the name should only be used for a person, and it means something like pervert/weird.

there is no term for "Japanese magazines" other than simply saying that: "Japanese magazines"!

"hentai magazines"

In Hentai, and on Akiba-Online:

• manga magazines is the term used to refer to those magazines which contain manga inside of them. They are NOT "mangas" in the English sense of the word (i.e. they are not tankoubons). These publications are made from flimsy loose paper just like our magazines; and their color pages utilize the same ink as do other professional magazines. It is therefore:
  o correct to refer to the stories inside of these publications as manga (漫画) if what you were referring to was the innards of the publication (and not the entire 400-page bound object) and what you meant when you used the word "manga" was "comics"
  x incorrect to refer to the entire publication as a "manga" (tankoubon), as it is neither a manga (its contents, plural, are manga) nor a tankoubon: it's not a bound book! It is a magazine! (マガジン,雑誌)

I would call one story "magazine chapter" or "manga chapter" depending o here it's coming from. A single story of 20 pages cannot be called "manga" ...

In general, there is a term qualifying all adult japanese comics, "seinen comic" (成年コミック), or "seinen manga" (成年漫画) to make the difference from shonen, shojo and other age categories. And to add confusion, there is another "seinen" category spelling 青年, this one is for adult material but with no explicit sex.

For the rest you're right.

Now let's talk about the difference between "doujin" and "manga" :secret:

 

[redrooster]

Now let's talk about the difference between "doujin" and "manga" :secret:

please continue this discussion - I finally want to know, not only reg. drawn but also reg. animated material

 

[Sakunyuusha]

You're not correct to equate "Japanese magazines" with "hentai magazines". ^_^; Unless you mean to tell me that you think the Japanese equivalents of Sports Illustrated and Cosmo are hentai. ^^; When I said "we don't have a nickname for Japanese magazines," I meant what I said -- all Japanese magazines.

Here, let me explain it another way. In American English, the term for all Japanese animation (regardless of its content) is "anime", right? If it's for adults, we call it "hentai anime." If it's for boys, we call it "shounen anime." For girls, "shoujo anime." Etc. But the word "anime" all by itself carries the meaning of "Japanese animation." Or as a second example, the term for all Japanese comics (regardless of their content) is "manga". In Japanese, these words simply mean "animation" and "comics", regardless of the country of origin. In other words, Japanese people would call our comics "manga" too. They would call our cartoons "anime." They might have a more specific label (like 英アニメ or 米アニメ or 洋アニメ or 西アニメ or something, I have no idea what) but the term "anime" all by itself doesn't tell them anything about the country of origin any more than "cartoons" or "animation" does for us.

So my point was, we Americans don't have a nickname for Japanese magazines (like calling them zasshi or magajin) because Japanese magazines aren't popular in America. So anyone who wants to talk about Japanese magazines will call them simply that -- "Japanese magazines." Just like he'd call Japanese cars "Japanese cars" or Japanese women "Japanese women." Nobody uses the term 女性 (josei) to mean "not just any women, but specifically Japanese women" in colloquial American English even in the anime nerd fanbase. I've never heard a guy say to me "I love josei! <3 <3 <3" -- I've only ever heard them say "I love Asian women!" or "I love Japanese women!" This is what I was trying to get at.

As for "hentai magazines", I wouldn't personally use that term but I agree 100% I recognize what it means and it doesn't sound abnormal (in American English). I'd call them H-magazines (or H-mags for short) or else I'd possibly call them ero-magazines.

As for the misuse of the word "hentai" by Westerners, yes, I'm more than well aware of this, but that's not what I was ranting about in today's rant. If I wanted to rant about all of the otaku slang terms which Americans misapply, it would take me several thousand more words than I've already written. lol

+1 & kudos for reminding me about the term "seinen comics", I completely neglected to address that. Good call, and a good example of something I wish would have penetrated the (American) Akiba fandom's consciousness but oh well.

Clarification: for those of you who can't read Japanese but love hentai, take a look at the front cover of not most but many of your favorite hentai books. You should see a yellow oval with the words 成年コミックス inside. This is what elgringo is smartly talking about. Sample picture attached. I thought it was more common (like, 25-33%) but looking for it just now it seems like it's not as common as I first expected. Still, I'm sure you've all seen it at some point. ​

Doujin and manga is another annoying misapplication by Western fans but not NEARLY as annoying (to me) as calling a magazine a "manga" or calling a genuine tankoubon "a magazine". It's like, UGH.

The other discussion we could get into is how American English speakers (myself included, when speaking in English of course) use the term "doujinshi" almost invariably to refer to ero-doujinshi despite the fact that there are non-18禁 doujinshi also. Anyway ...

Thanks for the reply, and again, very good point about how fans ought to know about seinen comics.

 

[redrooster]

is there a sign / mark to be seen equal to the "seinen comic" sign used for animations? Or is it only the round silvery label "18" seen on many covers?

 

[Sakunyuusha]

Since redrooster says he really doesn't know and wants to know, I can quickly address the doujin vs. manga dilemma.

SAME DISCLAIMERS AS BEFORE! (SEE THE RED TEXT ABOVE.) THANK YOU!

In Japanese:

• 同人誌 (doujinshi) means a fan-made publication. If we break it down, 同 means "same" (as in the word 同じ, onaji), 人 means "person", and 誌 means a printed work. In fact, 雑誌 (zasshi, magazine) uses the same 誌 suffix, so that should give you a clue as to what we're dealing with when we say the suffix -shi.
  
  This can refer to any fan-made piece. In other words, there are many fan-made comics (think of them as "fanfics with pictures", if you will) that would be rightly called "doujinshi" in Japan. Like a rated-PG Harry Potter doujin. Or a rated-PG Street Fighter doujin. Fancomics, basically. That's what "doujinshi" means to most Japanese -- "fan comics."
• エロ同人誌 (erodoujinshi) refers to a hentai doujinshi.
• 漫画 (manga) we have already discussed.
• エロ漫画 (eromanga) we have already discussed.
• Other Words: because 同人 refers to something which is fan-made, we have the term 同人ソフト (doujinsofuto) which means "fan-made software." And we have the rarer term 同人アニメ (doujinanime) which refers to a fan-made anime. Like the Touhou anime which is coming out at this year's Winter Comiket.

In American English:

• Because of their cultural and lingual ignorances, the first American enthusiasts who brought hentai over to the masses via the World Wide Web in the mid-1990s inadvertently popularized the misconception that the term "doujinshi" was Japanese for "erotic comics" or "adult comics."
• In other words, Americans use the term "doujinshi" in place of "seinen comics" 成年コミックス or "ero-doujinshi" エロ同人誌. So we don't even have the term "H-doujinshi" in common American English parlance, even though I and other fans do use it all the time, trying to raise awareness that not all doujins are pornographic.
• We do have the term doujinsoft, which was correctly carried over into English from its doujinsofuto spelling. However, it seems to have lost its broader meaning as "fan-made software" and to have acquired a more specific meaning of "fan-made PC games," i.e. fan-made eroge like Tsukihime and Fate / Stay Night. There's absolutely no reason why doujinsoft should refer to pornographic software alone. Famously, the Touhou series is all doujinsoft and is devoid of any pornography, so if you like Touhou and this will help you to rememebr what doujinsoft really means, then good.

Ignoring language and looking at what we're really dealing with here:
(note: all terms I use will be in accordance with common American English so as to not confuse readers)
DOUJINSHI:

• A doujinshi, or doujin for short, is a 30-60 page pornographic comic printed on loose paper. It is neither hardbound (like a schoolbook) nor softbound (like a manga). It is usually sold at a loss or at a break-even point. (Discussed further below.) Popular hentai circles may print as many as tens of thousands of copies of their works. The most popular hentai circles may even print enough copies to meet domestic (i.e. Japanese) demand. However, as a general rule of thumb, once a doujin goes out of print, that's it. For example, you cannot find a copy of Hellabunna's Inu 01: Murasaki without it being used.
• Doujin circles officially do not seek to profit from their fanworks. This would probably create legal difficulties for them if they did -- because most doujinshi feature copyrighted characters. For example, most doujinshi are of characters from Japanese anime, Japanese manga, or Japanese video games. A list of some currently-popular copyrighted franchises which are dominating the doujinshi scene include:
  - The Idolmaster (video game)
  - ToLoveRu (manga, anime)
  - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha (anime)
  - Macross Frontier (anime)
  - Hayate no Gotoku (anime)
  - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (anime)
  - Code Geass (anime)
  A list of some classic copyrighted franchises which have dominated the doujin scene for years, even a decade or more in some instances, include:
  - Street Fighter II (video game)
  - Dead or Alive (video game)
  - Dragon Quest (most commonly III, IV, and VIII) (video game)
  - Final Fantasy (most commonly IV and VII) (video game)
• Officially, Japanese companies do not approve of pornographic doujinshi. For example, Tomonobu Itagaki is famous for claiming that the Dead or Alive girls are "like daughters to [him]" -- and TECMO has proven it on several occasions by taking Japanese fans to court for creating pornographic mods to DOA video games. However, in spite of all of this talk, there are many circles which have been publishing graphic comics with Kasumi, Ayane, and the other DOA girls for years -- such as the famous hentai circle Hellabunna -- and which have not been targeted by TECMO or other copyright holders for copyright infringements. Why?
• It is probably because of two things:
  1) Doujinshi foster the spirit of fandom (even if it's perverted fandom) and that sort of fandom is difficult for a company to otherwise build. In other words, if doujinshi make men interested in the DOA girls, and if that leads them to purchase Dead or Alive 4, then Tecmo is probably not going to ask Hellabunna to quit printing hentai doujinshi.
  
  2) Some of the team members themselves enjoy seeing their creations in these erotic stories. In other words, it is highly likely that many of the people responsible for creating Dead or Alive, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, SNK, etc. are some of the biggest fans of erodoujinshi, and so they probably do their best to try and keep the movement alive.
• I said "30-60 pages" above. Let me now clarify that the smallest doujinshi can be as few as 6 pages! The longest doujinshi I have seen have approached 200 pages in length. Keep in mind that these were not magazines nor mangas, they were definitely doujins. But it is certainly rare to see doujins of this size. A fairly common size for digital distributions of doujinshi is 26 pages. Another fairly common size is 20 pages.

(ERO-)MANGA

• When an American fan uses the terms "H-manga" or "eromanga," he is probably referring to a hentai tankoubon.
• Hentai tankoubons fall under two categories: compilations and series.
• A compilation (or anthology) is a collection of unconnected stories that were either
  1) all penned by the same author (e.g. Doi Sakazaki's High Tension), or
  2) all dealing with the same fetish (e.g. many of the fetish books printed by KTC)
• A series tankoubon is my own made-up term trying to refer to those H-mangas which are stand-alone stories. In other words, like GLASS no Megami by Asamori Mizuki. From page 001 to page n, the manga reads like a storybook with pictures. It's like Love Hina or Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles except it's incredibly pornographic.
• Sometimes an H-manga is published straight to tankoubon form ...
• But most of the time the individual chapters were previously printed in a hentai manga magazine like Comic Megastore or Comic Kairakuten.
• The characters in nearly all H-manga are the author's own creations. In other words, you almost never see mangas of famous copyrighted characters like Chun Li or Tifa Lockheart.
• The exception to this rule is when the original copyright holder gives permission for his work(s) to be used by other circles. One of the most famous examples that I encounter on a daily basis is Black Lilith. That circle is incredibly generous and has allowed dozens of different artists to try their hand at writing and drawing erotic comics based on the Asagi, Iris, and Jeanne franchises. The reason I mention this is because I can point you out to a specific example -- there is an h-manga published by KTC called "Taimanin Asagi" featuring the works of several different authors.
• Because most of the time the characters are the author's own, eromangas can and often times ARE sold for profit. They have ISBNs and barcodes on their back covers just like other books. They are usually priced somewhere between 5 USD (¥500) and 15 USD (¥1500).
• Eromangas typically do not go out of print (or at least not as quickly as erodoujinshi do!). I have personally been able to purchase several eromangas at MSRP or lower prices which were as many as 4 years old. I could never even dream of doing that for an erodoujinshi.

(I was still going to write some more but this post is enormous so I'll stop here for now)

 

[Sakunyuusha]

is there a sign / mark to be seen equal to the "seinen comic" sign used for animations? Or is it only the round silvery label "18" seen on many covers?

18禁 (read "juuhachi kin") is the equivalent of a rated X warning label. It means "This product can only be purchased by people ages 18 years and older" and as far as I've ever encountered it's always been because of pornographic content and never because of other mature themes (e.g. violence, drugs, profanity). But seeing as I deal mostly in hentai when it comes to all things Japan, I'm biased and could easily be wrong.

But yeah, 18禁 would also suggest that the content is for adults only, so it does fulfill the same objective (I would say) as the seinen comics sticker.

 

[elgringo14]

Famously, the Touhou series is all doujinsoft and is devoid of any pornography, so if you like Touhou and this will help you to rememebr what doujinsoft really means, then good.

I don't know how erotic is the original game series, but I know that I'm seeing much more non-erotic doujins of it than erotic ones. The ones made by the FLIPFLOPs circle have really awesome artwork.
But I would bet that taking doujins globally, the majority are adult material.

• A doujinshi, or doujin for short, is a 30-60 page pornographic comic printed on loose paper. It is neither hardbound (like a schoolbook) nor softbound (like a manga). It is usually sold at a loss or at a break-even point. (Discussed further below.) Popular hentai circles may print as many as tens of thousands of copies of their works. The most popular hentai circles may even print enough copies to meet domestic (i.e. Japanese) demand. However, as a general rule of thumb, once a doujin goes out of print, that's it. For example, you cannot find a copy of Hellabunna's Inu 01: Murasaki without it being used.
• Doujin circles officially do not seek to profit from their fanworks. This would probably create legal difficulties for them if they did -- because most doujinshi feature copyrighted characters. For example, most doujinshi are of characters from Japanese anime, Japanese manga, or Japanese video games. A list of some currently-popular copyrighted franchises which are dominating the doujinshi scene include:
  - The Idolmaster (video game)
  - ToLoveRu (manga, anime)
  - Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha (anime)
  - Macross Frontier (anime)
  - Hayate no Gotoku (anime)
  - Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (anime)
  - Code Geass (anime)
  A list of some classic copyrighted franchises which have dominated the doujin scene for years, even a decade or more in some instances, include:
  - Street Fighter II (video game)
  - Dead or Alive (video game)
  - Dragon Quest (most commonly III, IV, and VIII) (video game)
  - Final Fantasy (most commonly IV and VII) (video game)
• Officially, Japanese companies do not approve of pornographic doujinshi. For example, Tomonobu Itagaki is famous for claiming that the Dead or Alive girls are "like daughters to [him]" -- and TECMO has proven it on several occasions by taking Japanese fans to court for creating pornographic mods to DOA video games. However, in spite of all of this talk, there are many circles which have been publishing graphic comics with Kasumi, Ayane, and the other DOA girls for years -- such as the famous hentai circle Hellabunna -- and which have not been targeted by TECMO or other copyright holders for copyright infringements. Why?
• It is probably because of two things:
  1) Doujinshi foster the spirit of fandom (even if it's perverted fandom) and that sort of fandom is difficult for a company to otherwise build. In other words, if doujinshi make men interested in the DOA girls, and if that leads them to purchase Dead or Alive 4, then Tecmo is probably not going to ask Hellabunna to quit printing hentai doujinshi.
  
  2) Some of the team members themselves enjoy seeing their creations in these erotic stories. In other words, it is highly likely that many of the people responsible for creating Dead or Alive, Street Fighter, Final Fantasy, SNK, etc. are some of the biggest fans of erodoujinshi, and so they probably do their best to try and keep the movement alive.
• I said "30-60 pages" above. Let me now clarify that the smallest doujinshi can be as few as 6 pages! The longest doujinshi I have seen have approached 200 pages in length. Keep in mind that these were not magazines nor mangas, they were definitely doujins. But it is certainly rare to see doujins of this size. A fairly common size for digital distributions of doujinshi is 26 pages. Another fairly common size is 20 pages.

A doujin is typically sold during fandom conventions, like "Comic Market" or "Comiket" (August and December, next batch is coming!), "Sunshine Creation" (usually June and October), "Comic Revolution", "Comic" (yes it's the name) and many smaller ones. They are produced either by well-known manga artists hiding on doujin circles, or by semi-professional artists who are starting their career this way. The advantage of such material is that it is not controlled by publishers companies, so all fantasies are allowed, including making parodies of existing characters.
They are also tolerated as you said, but I remember a case with a Doraemon parody that went into court, so it's really on the grey line. I have seen doujins from 8 to 250 pages, the longest ones are typically compilations of many different artists or many stories of the same artist.
And on the popular franchises list, don't forget Evangelion which is still a strong phenomenon, especially the ones with Rei Ayanami.

Because most of the time the characters are the author's own, eromangas can and often times ARE sold for profit.[/b] They have ISBNs and barcodes on their back covers just like other books. They are usually priced somewhere between 5 USD (¥500) and 15 USD (¥1500).

This is the key feature to differenciate doujin and manga without knowing in advance. If they have a barcode and/or ISBN number on the front/back cover, then it's a copyrighted material, e.g. a manga, if not most likely it's a doujin.

 

[Sakunyuusha]

Completely agree except on one point (discussed below). Otherwise, completely agree.

The one point where I neither agree nor disagree -- because I just don't know! -- is the hentai vs. non-hentai percentages of doujinshi. I have been told by many collectors that hentai doujinshi are in the minority. As someone who has tons and tons and tons (perhaps 50-100 GB) of hentai doujinshi alone (i.e. not counting hentai manga, magazines, etc), I must say that in my own personal experience I have seen far more hentai doujins than non-hentai ones, just as you suggest should be the case! Like, 99.9% of the doujinshi on my computer are for adults, and 98.0% of the doujinshi I encounter are for adults. But again, people have told me in the past that non-hentai doujinshi are far more common, so I really don't know.

I have also been told that Comiket is not the best representation of the true percentages, i.e. there is a disproportionately high amount of hentai doujinshi sold at Comiket than would otherwise be sold in Japan, i.e. Comiket's brochure will skew the percentages artificially in favor of hentai doujinshi. But I have no proof of this, and the only person who would really know is a doujin collector living in Japan.

 

[elgringo14]

The one point where I neither agree nor disagree -- because I just don't know! -- is the hentai vs. non-hentai percentages of doujinshi. I have been told by many collectors that hentai doujinshi are in the minority. As someone who has tons and tons and tons (perhaps 50-100 GB) of hentai doujinshi alone (i.e. not counting hentai manga, magazines, etc), I must say that in my own personal experience I have seen far more hentai doujins than non-hentai ones, just as you suggest should be the case! Like, 99.9% of the doujinshi on my computer are for adults, and 98.0% of the doujinshi I encounter are for adults. But again, people have told me in the past that non-hentai doujinshi are far more common, so I really don't know.

I have also been told that Comiket is not the best representation of the true percentages, i.e. there is a disproportionately high amount of hentai doujinshi sold at Comiket than would otherwise be sold in Japan, i.e. Comiket's brochure will skew the percentages artificially in favor of hentai doujinshi. But I have no proof of this, and the only person who would really know is a doujin collector living in Japan.

This is just my conclusion about the proportions of adult vs non-adult material. Now the adult part is much more eager to end up on the web of course. Also the demand is not comparable I guess. :destroy:
As I said, Touhou is one exception to rule because you can find a lot of non-adult doujins easily.

About Comiket, I just wanted to say that it is THE big event for doujin releases, whether it's adult or not. I can't say about the proportions.
The 75th edition is happening by the end of this year.