×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
Answerman - What Ever Happened To Manga Entertainment?


Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
VigorousJammer



Joined: 19 Feb 2014
Posts: 16
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:26 am Reply with quote
Mr. Oshawott wrote:
VigorousJammer wrote:
...in Japan, many anime is also referred to as "manga".
In Japanese, the word "manga" is written using the kanji 漫 (which means "free" or "unrestrained") and the kanji 画 (which means "brush stroke" or "a picture/drawing")
So, literally, the word manga means something along the lines of "A drawing which is drawn freely, without restraint". Which would apply mostly to static images (like those seen in comics)... but can also apply to animation, and I've seen it used in both contexts in modern Japanese culture.

Interesting...So in a sense, I can literally enjoy manga by watching it on TV as well as reading it?

That's right! For instance, the word "manga"(漫画)is used when referring to the TV anime Doraemon, as well as the comic version of it. Much in the same way the English word "cartoon" can be used to refer to juvenile comics as well as TV cartoons.
However, where "Cartoon" has the automatic implication of something being animated, with comics only sometimes being referred to as "cartoons", the roles are somewhat reversed when it comes to the word "Manga".

In many cases, the word "manga"(漫画) is still used to refer exclusively to the comic version of a series, and only sometimes to the TV version.
I've also seen the katakana form of "Comic"(コミック)and "Comics" (コミックス) being used as well... typically when it comes to seinen and josei series... stuff with a more mature, serious flare to it, so it seems like "Manga" tends to share a similarly juvenile tone as the word "Cartoon" does in English.
For more serious animation in Japan... they would never use the word "manga", instead referring to it as "anime" or "the animation", "the animated series", or perhaps just "the series".

There's also the word "Gekiga" (劇画), which means something like "Dramatic pictures", and is occasionally used to refer to more serious comics... but was originally used to refer to serious films. The kanji "Geki" literally means "a drama" or "a play", so Gekiga would literally mean something like "A drama told through drawings". However, I've never seen the word "Gekiga" used for animation like "Manga" is... perhaps they just have a subtle, different connotation.

Anyway, this is simply my perception of things... viewing Japanese culture from the outside, looking in... so I may be somewhat inaccurate about some of this.


Last edited by VigorousJammer on Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:41 am; edited 2 times in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
DerekL1963
Subscriber



Joined: 14 Jan 2015
Posts: 1119
Location: Puget Sound
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:36 am Reply with quote
Bamble wrote:

The scale of Manga Video's original success can really be measured by this. Every UK anime-related publication in the 1990s desperately tried to intone that it should be "anime", but over twenty years since Manga Video began, their company name is still the colloquial term used by the mainstream to describe anime releases in the UK. No wonder they tried to file a UK copyright for the word "Manga" back in 1994!


I can't speak to the UK, but at least in the US back in the 90's we were all still a little shaky on the meaning and usage of various terms. As late as the mid 90's, a new anime club was getting started at the local college - and calling themselves the "Japanimation Society".

The first generation of otaku... we didn't even have a real name for the stuff. "Star Blazers" and "Battle of the Planets" were just "weird cartoons from Japan". But it was different from the (already rapidly watering down) US fare of the time - and we liked it. And mostly coming from the SF ghetto, we were used to multigenerational copies of videotapes (assuming we knew someone with a player... they weren't that common then). That was just the price for being able to see something other than at the whim of the local TV station or independent movie theater. (We would get a couple of hundred people in a room at a con just to watch crappy copies of ST:TOS episodes in the early 80's.)

It's no wonder Akira was a hit... even as late as 1991 we were so desperate for anything resembling SF.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Shiroi Hane
Encyclopedia Editor


Joined: 25 Oct 2003
Posts: 7580
Location: Wales
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:46 am Reply with quote
There were a fair few things I didn't know about (e.g. L.A. Hero and Iyadomi), but to inject a bit of local knowledge:

Article wrote:
Meanwhile, Manga Entertainment's UK office was restarted as its own separate division in 2005, and the company has spent the last few years releasing UK editions of anime in cooperation with Funimation, Viz and Sentai Filmworks.

Just to be clear, while they have (or had, judging by some recent comments) an exclusive deal to sublicense titles from FUNimation and are the distributors for Kaze (née Viz Media Europe), others of their titles have been licensed directly from Japan, albeit using US materials (sometimes via Australia) in most cases.

Quote:
A few months ago two of their key executives, Jerome Mazandarani and Andrew Hewson, have left to start their own anime company called Animatsu Entertainment. Given that the new company has already announced quite a few titles for the UK market, including Knights of Sidonia, A Certain Magical Index, Beyond the Boundary and Nadia, they seem to be picking up the slack for what's left of Manga UK.

It's not as drastic as you make it sound, since Animatsu licenses for Manga and Manga distributes for Animatsu. Index was something that was impossible for Manga to license since signing a deal with Universal required handing over information Starz weren't willing to provide to a competitor. There was also some mandate preventing Manga from releasing discs in NTSC which was increasing costs where PAL masters weren't available. Starz has actually sold Manga UK now however. I assume it it Fetch now running the @mangauk account

Quote:
Web sales are being fulfilled by Wales-based competitor MVM. It is worrying.

This has been the case for a long time. I think their web store has been operated by MVM since it launched in fact. It may seem strange, but since MVM are a retailer as well as a licensor it is really no different to when FUNimation's online storefront was a branded TRSI portal.

Primus wrote:
The guy that handles Manga's US Twitter account must be really sad reading this article. Crying or Very sad

Jesse Gouldsbury I believe. He's also still regularly uploading "Manga Melt" and "Manga Cast" videos on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/MANGAentertainment/videos

purplepolecat wrote:
I seem to remember that in the UK in the 1990s we all referred to anime as "Manga", because it was ALL released by Manga Entertainment. Can anyone corroborate this? When did people start using the correct word?

I never did (I learned the word "anime" from an Amiga magazine back around the time Akira was on the Beeb), but it's only relatively recently that video stores, where they had an anime section, called it "Manga". HMV, Virgin and MVC all did it.

DangerMouse wrote:
Yes! I loved Karas too. I'd love a blu-ray for it.

We almost got a Blu-ray in the UK (I even had it ordered from Amazon) but it fell through. Problem was that the HD masters presented it as individual episodes but the English materials were for the two "films".
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website AIM Address Yahoo Messenger MSN Messenger ICQ Number My Anime My Manga
jrockfreak



Joined: 06 Sep 2013
Posts: 125
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 5:37 pm Reply with quote
i still use the Manga app on my 360 from time to time, they have some good classics and early 2000's shows on there. Someone mentioned how animondays were all manga shows, did manga own the rights to the anime Tokko? I would love to see it released.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Joe Carpenter



Joined: 29 Oct 2011
Posts: 503
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 7:07 pm Reply with quote
Manga Entertainment brought the Read or Die OVA to the US, so they'll always have my respect for that, they were overall a pretty good publisher and it's a shame they faded into the ether.



Zalis116 wrote:
Mr Adventure wrote:
The original Read or Die OVA release was probably one of the first DVD anime releases I went out of my way to find after hearing some rave reviews about it online.
Ah yes, the same release that interpreted a character's name (Nenene, who appears in the sequel TV series) as "Up! Up! Up!", among other similarly wrong renderings, on a number of signs. Granted, it's an unusual name, and Manga's interpretation does make sense on some level. You'd think this would be one of those times when pro translators could use their advantage of being able to consult with the Japanese creators, but apparently not. Yet even the ancient DivX fansubs got it right!


Ah yes, the infamous "Up! Up! Up!" mistranslation. Razz
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
WingKing



Joined: 27 Apr 2015
Posts: 617
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:21 pm Reply with quote
DerekL1963 wrote:

I can't speak to the UK, but at least in the US back in the 90's we were all still a little shaky on the meaning and usage of various terms. As late as the mid 90's, a new anime club was getting started at the local college - and calling themselves the "Japanimation Society".


The English dub of Excel Saga had the characters talking about "Japanimation" in the dialogue (most notably during the Sailor Moon parody in episode 17), and those DVDs first came out in 2002.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
nobahn
Subscriber



Joined: 14 Dec 2006
Posts: 5135
PostPosted: Tue Sep 15, 2015 11:35 pm Reply with quote
jrockfreak wrote:
[D]id manga own the rights to the anime Tokko?

At the very least, they had the broadcast rights.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
DerekL1963
Subscriber



Joined: 14 Jan 2015
Posts: 1119
Location: Puget Sound
PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:49 am Reply with quote
WingKing wrote:
DerekL1963 wrote:

I can't speak to the UK, but at least in the US back in the 90's we were all still a little shaky on the meaning and usage of various terms. As late as the mid 90's, a new anime club was getting started at the local college - and calling themselves the "Japanimation Society".


The English dub of Excel Saga had the characters talking about "Japanimation" in the dialogue (most notably during the Sailor Moon parody in episode 17), and those DVDs first came out in 2002.


Wow... I thought it had died about by then.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
animelytical



Joined: 17 Oct 2014
Posts: 48
PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:51 am Reply with quote
jrockfreak wrote:
did manga own the rights to the anime Tokko? I would love to see it released.


Unless there is another Tokko, it is available on DVD. If it us one that you really want, you nay be pleased at its price.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6895
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:24 pm Reply with quote
DerekL1963 wrote:
WingKing wrote:
The English dub of Excel Saga had the characters talking about "Japanimation" in the dialogue (most notably during the Sailor Moon parody in episode 17), and those DVDs first came out in 2002.


Wow... I thought it had died about by then.
Blame the Japanese writers then, because they say "Japanimation" in the Japanese track as well. And that would've likely been written in late 1999 for an episode that aired in early 2000.


Last edited by Zalis116 on Thu Sep 17, 2015 2:03 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Mohawk52



Joined: 16 Oct 2003
Posts: 8202
Location: England, UK
PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 1:27 pm Reply with quote
Well here in the UK StarZ took it in from the cold, gave it food and warmth then brutally raped it and left it for dead in the cold again. The body still twitches, but just barely.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 6199
PostPosted: Wed Sep 16, 2015 9:50 pm Reply with quote
Mohawk52 wrote:
Well here in the UK StarZ took it in from the cold, gave it food and warmth then brutally raped it and left it for dead in the cold again. The body still twitches, but just barely.


Damn that's a brutal analogy.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
vonPeterhof



Joined: 10 Nov 2014
Posts: 729
PostPosted: Thu Sep 17, 2015 9:59 pm Reply with quote
Justin Sevakis wrote:
Their story began in the late 1980s in London, when music producer and publishing manganate Chris Blackwell started a new subsidiary of his highly successful record label, Island Records, to distribute music videos and concert films for their musical acts.
Not sure if intentional or not, but this made me chuckle.

lilbuta wrote:
kgw wrote:
purplepolecat wrote:
I seem to remember that in the UK in the 1990s we all referred to anime as "Manga", because it was ALL released by Manga Entertainment. Can anyone corroborate this? When did people start using the correct word?


Never.

No, seriously. At least, in the 99% of the Western population -who still does not know what "anime" is.


Agreed. Even fans younger than me trying to run their own fan group in the last 5 years (I'm of the Akira Fandom Generation) still struggle to know the difference. I find it quite saddening. These kids have the internet to educate them; I didn't! Sad
Could be worse - a former colleague of mine once asked me what the difference was between "anime" and "hentai" Rolling Eyes I also distinctly remember having a copy of Guinness World Records (pretty sure it was from 1999) where Akira was described as the highest grossing "manga style" animated film. I always assumed that it was an unnecessarily liberal interpretation on the part of the Russian translators, but looks like it could have well been like that in the original wording.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message My Anime My Manga
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3, 4
Page 4 of 4

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group