Week 10: Manga

Buddha by Osamu Tezuka is a manga series and an interpretation of the life of Buddha himself, and how Buddhism came to be.

Visually speaking, immediately noticeable in the first volume is the detail in the line work of the comic's illustrations. Especially in the beginning, there are intricate illustrations that take up entire spreads rather than panels. This, along with the language used in the narration (though are are moments of long passages with no narration at all, allowing the illustrations to speak for themselves) make the intro especially impactful, and allow the reader to feel themselves stepping into an epic tale.

Despite this sense of grandeur, Buddha doesn't take itself too seriously and maintains a sense of humor throughout. There's an interesting mix of more vulgar humor, nudity, swearing, etc., as well as more "slapstick" comic techniques like sound effects or motion lines. This humor is apparent even in more serious or threatening moments of conflict. Because of this, it's unclear to me as to who exactly the audience for Buddha is meant to be -- I can't gauge the age range for something like this.

There is also a good use of multiple storylines and character arcs that ultimately link together -- it helps to give the story greater depth overall. Additionally, there's an interesting balance between lore, history, and modern issues; this makes for a good sense of relevance and timelessness, and works for all forms of storytelling.

Considered the "grandfather" of manga, Tezuka is also the creator of Astro Boy, which we explored in class. There are clear similarities between Buddha and Astro boy both visually and thematically, especially the common theme of family and morality.






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 2: Understanding Comics

Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud provides a broad spectrum of information in a graphic format. McCloud makes several interesting points, most memorably breaking down the idea of people seeing themselves in cartoons. As McCloud writes, the less specifically and less detailed that a face is drawn, the more it generally looks like any average person walking down the street. Because of this, we are more likely to recognize ourselves in the face that we see in a cartoon. Although I think this is an interesting idea, I don't entirely agree with McCloud's point. From my own understanding, cartoon characters are relatable to us because they are simplified; however, my opinion differs in the reasoning for cartoons being simplified. From what I can remember as an ex-animation student, it's less so that people are more likely to see themselves in the image, and more because audiences, especially children, have pretty short attention spans and are more likely to have their at
Read more

Week 7: Legitimation

Maus by Art Spiegelman, published nearly 40 years after the end of the second World War, tells the story of Spiegelman's father as a Jew in Poland during the Nazi regime. Both the narrative/written aspect and the visuals and layout of volumes one and two contribute to the overall effect that Spiegelman achieves in his work. Most notable about Maus is the lens in which the story is told through. The narrative is achieved Spiegelman interviewing his father about his life as a Polish Jew. The interview itself is included in the comic, sprinkled between his father's accounts. In this way, the comic breaks the fourth wall, acknowledging that it is a graphic novel in production. Additionally, because the story is told from the perspective of Spiegelman interviewing his father, the father actually acts as narrator for a majority of the volumes. This is made especially clear with the diction that is used when his father is speaking, this being broken English or English meant to b
Read more