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Issue 1. Cognitive Narratology

Manga story-telling/showing

Author: Aarnoud Rommens
Published: August 2000

Abstract (E): In this article, I will focus on some formal characteristics that distinguish manga from non-Japanese comics production. These two media also exert influence on one another, and after decades of stressing western influence on manga artists, I would like to explore the reverse line; manga does have an impact on European and Western comics practices. In order to substantiate this, I will touch upon the crossover products 'Euromanga' (Boilet) and 'Amerimanga' (Pope).

Abstract (F): Le propos de cet article est d'analyser certaines des caractéristiques formelles qui distinguent les mangas des bandes dessinées non-japonaises. Comme il y a aussi bien des influences réciproques, on examinera également, non pas l'aspect bien connu de l'influence de la production non-japonaise sur les mangas, mais celui moins connu de l'impact des mangas sur la production occidentale. A cet effet, on étudiera deux exemples de produits "mixtes": une BD "Euromanga" (Boilet) et une BD "Amerimanga" (Pope).

Keywords: manga, Boilet, Pope

1. Manga as a Medium

Western discourse often 'annexes' manga in the overall European/American comics production by representing it as a mere genre within comics' constellation, thereby denying the fact that manga is a medium in its own right. Manga is treated as an exotic feature within the Euro-American comics' field. It is solely seen as the 'Japanese variant of the comic strip', implying that western comics may lay claim on the title of 'true' comic. The western gaze turns manga into an anomaly to be colonized by an underlying - or in some cases overt - genre definition which limits it to the prototypical 'comic with an excess of sex and violence' (Rommens 2000). This postulative statement homes in on the perceived otherness when contents is concerned. Not only western (especially American) media in general have a skewed perception, comics publications as well seem to limit themselves to thematic approaches when manga, and indeed when comics at large are concerned. Publications that deviate from the axiom of thematics (contents) are the most interesting as they raise the issue of specificity: what makes a comic a comic? As contents and story line can hardly be said to account for the specific nature of the medium, one has to stress formal criteria to get some idea of its inherent characteristics. The same holds true with manga, which may profit from a more formally oriented approach. This is not to say thematic peculiarities are irrelevant to the study of manga, but these factors pertain more to the Umwelt (social, political, etc. circumstances) then to the actual system of manga itself. Besides, thematic issues of have already been discussed at considerable length (see for instance Schodt 1986). Therefore, instead of focusing on issues of contents, this article takes a more formal stance. When trying to formulate some of the distinctive features, a comparative analysis between manga and its western counterpart is called for. Most of the references to formal characteristics is limited to mere aspect of aesthetics ('those giant manga/anime eyes') or the occasional cliched reference to the use of speedlines. In addition, some of these features stem from the inherently visual nature of the Japanese writing system and not so much the 'manga language' itself. Therefore, factors such as reading direction and to a lesser extent onomatopoeia are not medium (viz. manga) inherent. I will limit myself to those distinctive features which I deem typical for the medium itself, viz. two procedures that make up the core (center position) of manga techniques. L'Univers des Mangas (Groensteen 1991) provided me with an interesting point of departure.

2. Analytical Montage: A Cinematographical Narrative Technique

Supposed Eastern 'iconophilia' surfaces in the reception of western comics. The Japanese public and manga artists often describe European and American comics as too 'wordy' or 'literary'. Sometimes, Western comic strip authors themselves criticize some of these 'iconoclastic tendencies'. French artist Baudoin for instance, who incidentally made some work for the Japanese publishing house Kodansha states that he has "never worked with a Japanese scriptwriter, because in Japan, they do use a lot of images without text. European scriptwriters act as if a page is valuable, as if it has to contain as much as possible. Publishers too think it's abnormal when you draw three pages of clouds alone, while that may actually be necessary sometimes" (Meesters 1997, my translation).

Indeed, the amount of wordless passages in any volume of manga may be striking to the Western eye. To 'read' manga is to read images - the rhythm is determined by the sequence of images. Of course, western comics also have a genre known as 'sourds' - wordless comics. As opposed to Japanese perception, such works are regarded in the West as 'experimental', 'avant-garde' - in other words exotic, or as a new (peripheral) phenomenon. However, even in the 'sourds', the sequence of images is not so much based on analytical montage in comparison to manga production. Manga Speed-reading is made possible through the elimination of textual information. By using cinematographical techniques (purely metaphorically speaking), this effect is enhanced. In most cases, this means that the image alone (in isolation and the sequence) conveys narrative information, its narrative potential being used to the full.

As opposed to Euro-American comics, you will rarely find descriptive captions in manga. The use of these is kept to a strict minimum, which cannot be said of the prototypical European/American comic. In Three Silver Watches for instance (Vance, Van Hamme 1995: 28) captions are extensively used. On plates three, four and five the text reads: "and so, that evening . Unfortunately, a heavy storm broke out that very moment . transforming the Rio Grande in a swirling mass" (my translation). In manga, such textual information would disturb the visual continuum in the sequence of images. In the quoted passage word and text convey roughly the same information - that is to say, the text directs the reading and interpretation of the image. This 'doubling' of narrative information through textual description is not to be found in any manga. There, captions rather serve a 'situating' function, as in "Neo-Tokyo, 2019" (Otomo 1992). In manga, interpretation is achieved through the succession of visual cues, with the significant exception of dialogue (cf. infra). In Akira for instance, Neo-Tokio is depicted as being hit by a tidal wave. Unlike Three Silver Watches, this interpretation is based on visual information alone (Otomo 1992: 46 - 47). The notion 'description' presupposes a descriptive entity, a narrator in other words. Manga differs markedly from Euro-American comics in its absence of 'textual narrators'. Neither authorial nor personal textual narrative voices feature in manga volumes. Instead of filtering visual information through supra-diegetic narrative voices, manga shows what is happening in a less mediated manner. The camera-eye acts as the main source of narration, and it is as it were the director who puts the 'stills' in a flowing sequence.

European and American comics usually superimpose on this basic narrative layer an additional textual frame, thus resulting in a double enunciation. There are in fact two different subjects of enunciation. There is the visual subject of enunciation - the camera-eye - selecting and presenting material to the viewer. Captions supplement the visual narration with a textual perspective, resulting in a textual subject of enunciation. Furthermore, one can distinguish two levels of narration, the intra and the extra-diegetic layers. Intradiegetically speaking, the basic source of visual information is the isolated image. 'Every image tells a story', so to speak. Following Gaudreault (1984), one might term this the 'micro-story', based on analogy. With abstract images, our compulsion to seek analogy and hence some sort of interpretation (due to a so-called 'horror vacui') is equally operative.

Dialogue, as textual information, is part of the intradiegetic story layer, as it is directly integrated in the visual make-up: the balloon points to the characters/speakers as story entities. This is the intra-diegetic use of the verbal code. The intradiegetic macro-story consists of the linear configuration of the plates due to sequencing (montage). This is the second component of the iconic code. Still within the visual narrative layer, one can distinguish 'translinear sequences' (Lefèvre & Baetens 1993). In this case, meaning is composed through combining recurrent visual elements in some sort of pattern, a visual motif as it were. Entering the extradiegetic realm, the occurrence of captions results in a second use of the verbal code. The textual narrative voice here assumes a position 'above' the story actions themselves, either through omniscience (authorial narrator) or some sort of temporal, spatial or other form of distance (as is the case with I-narrators). Manga as well uses the verbal and the iconic code, but reduces extradiegetic voices to a minimum. The verbal code is reserved for dialogue - or other 'sounds' - and as being intradiegetic does not interfere with the story flow. However, it has to be noted that non-translated Japanese onomatopoeia are very visual, next to being auditive, which further testifies to the visual integration of the verbal.

The double enunciation of the western comic can be made overt when the two codes, and hence the two subjects of enunciation are in contradiction. An interesting case in point is Chris Ware's Thrilling Adventure Stories (1991). On the one hand, an overlaying personal narrator recounts childhood memories. However, the verbal code is not backed up by the iconic code as the visual narrative shows a traditional superhero comic. What you see is not what you get, and what you read is not what you see. Such a clash between modes of narration is unimaginable in manga, as the extra-diegetic layer is (nearly) non-existent. The principle technique of storytelling is 'analytical montage' (Groensteen 1991) in which the sequencing of plates is very resourceful in comparison with a rather constrained Euro-American montage and page layout. In manga, there is no textual interference. Analytical montage entails the 'scattering' of a story event over different frames. A scene that would 'normally' (at least, from a western point of view) be captured in a single pane - with the necessary (or if you will redundant) descriptive information - is now cut up over different frames. The isolated frames, with alternating 'camera-angles', are put together in a visual continuum. Especially fighting scenes provide excellent illustrative material to this technique. For instance, the narrative in Crying Freeman (Koike & Ikegami 1994) proceeds through a rapid succession of images in the visual chain. Manga artists are real masters in creating such sweeping visual arrangements. Story tension and atmosphere are effected through variation of the number of plates per page - while applying cinematographical techniques such as fade-out, fade-in and superimposition - ultimately resulting in flexible page layouts. The 'mise-en-page' shows endless variation and is baroque compared to prototypical Euro-American page layouts. This is why a typology of comic book layout formats, as proposed by Benoît Peeters (1991) does not apply to manga layouts. Peeters identifies four basic types of page layouts, the conventional, rhetorical, decorative and productive. In a conventional page make-up, the distribution of plates on a page is given and follows a strict pattern. The 'story' is dominant and determines the 'painting', viz. the way in which the plates taken together form one picture. In the decorative layout, not the story, but the painting is dominant. In both types story and painting are independent, which is not the case with rhetorical and productive layouts. In a rhetorical layout, the story has the upper hand, while the painting dominates in a productive plate setup. For more information on the subject see Peeters (1991) and also Lefèvre & Baetens (1993).

It has to be said that institutional factors have contributed to this free use of page layout that is so common in manga. Due to competition on the manga market, the price of a volume the size of a telephone book does not exceed five dollars (Gaouette, 1999). A manga artist usually has thirty pages at his disposal, per week that is, so he is not as constrained as his European or American colleagues, who cannot boast such a luxury. So in a way, as opposed to what Baudoin asserted, Euro-American comics' pages are 'valuable'.

3. Patchwork Aesthetics

ill. 1 Crying Freedom (Koihe and Ikegami 1994)

In this paragraph, I will limit myself to a characteristic trait of the isolated plates, which pertain to the micro-story level. Transformation and instability are not only keywords when page layout is concerned. The graphic style of each individual manga plate is also marked by a high degree of variation. Manga plates can be quite heterogeneous in their stylistic make-up, due to the mixture of different drawing styles. Elements of decor follow a different visual 'logic' than the characters (Groensteen 1991: 47). While story actors might be depicted in a realistic or as more or less caricatures, the story setting is represented in what one may characterize as a 'photographic' style. Story characters seem not to be part of the story universe when judging the seeming incomparability of styles. The depiction of strong sentiments with manga actors also follows a certain logic of transformation. It is perfectly possible for a certain 'realistically' portrayed character to turn 'cartoony' when affected by strong emotions (see ill. 2). Moreover, it seems that story characters lack definite ethnic characteristics. In some cases, it is impossible (and irrelevant) to decide if a manga character is either eastern or western. Despite his Japanese sounding name, Yo Hinomura (alias Crying Freeman) does not strike the reader as 'visually' very Japanese (see ill. 1). His visual identity is rather ambiguous. Crying Freeman could be Asian or even Spanish for that matter, doubtlessly adding to the mystery surrounding the protagonist. Incidentally, Christophe Gans, director of the film version of Crying Freeman, interpreted the protagonist as someone resembling 'une espèce de torero, qu'il ait une grâce d'hidalgo espagnol dont les femmes tomberaient instantanément amoureuses'. At other occasions he spoke of 'a mixture of Bruce Lee and Alain Delon'. He eventually chose Mark Dacascos for the leading role. (Martinez 1996: 40-42)

ill. 2 A 'cartoony' explosion of emotion of the protagonist of "Dominion" (Shirow 1996)

Sometimes only subtle details such as hair color or clothing mark the difference between characters, making it necessary for the reader to be acquainted with the manga reading code in order to keep up with the story. 'Realistic' artists such as Otomo or Shirato are exceptional and their approach fits more closely within the western paradigm of individual style. Shirow, for instance, works without assistants thus moving closer towards the western ideal of 'authenticity'. In his work, there is no discrepancy between a photographic background and more stylized figures, although caricature does feature in his manga (see ill. 2). The code of representation in manga is highly unstable, this in sharp contrast with Euro-American comics. In Western rhetoric, the 'attachment' to a notion such as 'personal style' condemns such mixture of visual language, as the true ('high') artist is supposed to testify to an individual sensibility through an individual style of imagery.

4. A Case of Cross-over: Pope and Boilet

Manga is a subsystem within the 'ninth art's' polysystem, thereby competing with the subsystems of American and European comics. The dynamics between these results in conversions, which can be catalogued as exchanges of narrative techniques. In this paragraph I will focus on some transformations within the work of Euro-American artists, viz. Frédéric Boilet and Paul Pope. Within the western comics' subsystem, manga represents a peripheral phenomenon exerting pressure on the 'canonical' techniques of European and American art. In the works of Boilet and Pope, some of these 'peripheral' manga elements have influenced their own approach to comics' creation.

In 1997, The One Trick Rip Off was published and in his foreword Pope states that 'two Japanese manga artists . Junichi Nojo and King Gonta . helped me open up my page lay-outs and reconsider how to approach different aspects of image-making within the panels. Gone are the tight, four-tiered 'European' page lay-outs' (1997: 5).

ill. 3Visualisation of sound and cut-foff plates in Paul Pope's "The One Trick Ripp Off" (1997)

Indeed, the latest works of Paul Pope testify to an intensification of the visual narrative layer. The page layouts are more dynamic and the techniques of analytical montage feature prominently. Striking is that at certain times the top of the frames is cut off - a place conventionally reserved for captioned texts. Is this a case of symbolic violence to the extradiegetic voice? In any case, due to the discarding of extradiegetic narration, an uninterrupted diegesis is achieved. All textual information is provided in the form of dialogue. Furthermore, the use of English onomatopoeia strikes one as highly visualized. As in manga, these signs are not only verbal in nature, but do also function iconically as they are an integral part of the visual configuration of the micro-story (see ill. 3).

ill. 4 Boilet's "Tokyo est mon jardin": Japanese and French texts combined with a 'European' page lay-out (1997)

It is precisely in his use of original Japanese onomatopoeia that gives the work of Boilet a decidedly Japanese look. Not only does he use Japanese sound icons, he also uses Japanese in his text balloons as in Love Hôtel and Tôkyô est mon jardin. More significant is that Boilet also refrains from inserting any extradiegetic voice, thus avoiding the prototypical double enunciation. However, Boilet does use captions, but these serve an intradiegetic function - viz. as dialogue texts without the speaker being depicted in the frame. They really function as balloons. However, Boilet does not make extensive use of analytical montage. His page layouts follow a certain regular pattern and can therefore be termed 'European' (see ill. 4).

Conclusion

The impact of manga on European and American comics' production is on the rise. This increase of influence can be linked to the growing success of manga in France and America especially, where there is a certain tradition with regards to translation, distribution and marketing of this particular art form. The influence on American and European artists manifests itself on the fringe of the comics' system and manifests itself in a more visual and textually less mediated manner of narration.

Bibliography

BAETENS, Jan and Pascal LEFEVRE. (1993) Pour une lecture moderne de la bande dessinée. Bruxelles:BCB

BOILET, Frédéric, Benoît PEETERS and Jirô TANIGUCHI (1997). Tôkyô est mon Jardin. Tournai: Casterman

GAUDREAULT, André (1984). Film, récit, narration: le cinema des frères Lumière, in Iris 2/1

GAOUETTE, N. (1999). "Get Your Manga here". The Christian Science Monitor. February 8, 1999.

GROENSTEEN, Thierry (1991). L'Univers des Mangas. Tournai: Casterman

KOIKE, Kazuo and Ryoichi Ikegami. (1994). Crying Freeman. "Part two: Journey to Freedom". San Francisco: Viz Communications

MARTINEZ, D. (1996) Crying Freeman: du Manga au Film. Grenoble: Glénat

MEESTERS, Gert (1997). "Baudoin: geen leven als pinguïn". De Morgen. July 27.

OTOMO, K. (1992). Akira. Part 6: "Chaos". Grenoble: Glénat

PEETERS, Benoit (1991). Case, Planche, Récit : Comment Lire une Bande Dessinée. Tournai: Casterman

POPE, P. (1997). The One Trick Rip Off. Milwaukie: Dark Horse Comics

ROMMENS, Aarnoud (2000). "Manga en Anime: Japan en de Discursieve Identiteitsconstructie". Unpublished paper.

SCHODT, F. (1986). Manga! Manga!. Chicago: Brimstone Press

WARE, Chris (1991). "Thrilling Adventure Stories" RAW vol. 2 n°3. New York: Penguin

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