Why Comics And Manga Are Popular Worldwide | Comic Manga Popularity

Manga and comic both are the words used for a visual novel.

And both are very popular worldwide which is evident from the number of superhero movies based on comics and many anime based on manga.

Some years ago comics were the only things popular in the Western audience but in recent years they have also acquired as much popularity as comics.

In Japan, or as the Japanese call it Nippon only about a million copies of manga are sold per month and comics in a sense are bought as collectibles.

Why comics and manga are popular

There are many reasons for both of them getting that much attention worldwide some of the reasons are the same, but some are different for both.

Movies and anime is the biggest reason for them getting popular, but there are many more reasons.

I will list all those reasons below.

Adaptation into Movies and Anime: Manga Comic

The biggest reason for the popularity of comics like DC and Marvel can be given to their movie adaptation. In terms of revenue and reach movies reach and far wider audience than comics.

But these movies make the audience curious to know more about the source of the comic.

And just like the comic has a movie adaptation manga also has anime.

Many of the popular comics in Japan got adapted into anime and those anime were the ones who became popular among the eastern and western audience and through anime fans came to know about manga.

Which were in the time only associated with Japan.

To know the Backstory Of Characters: Manga Comic

As I said above manga and comic both has taken a big spot on the television screen but most of the time in order to make a long comic into a movie most of the story and character background has to be left out in order to make a 3-hour film.

Even more for anime if the manga is of 100 or more chapters and has to put all that in 13-14 episodes.

So people who love anime also read those comic mangas to know all about their favorite characters.

Caters To a Very Wide Audience: Manga

Manga and comic both now are made for a very wide audience from children to adults and especially manga which people of all age group loves.

You can find manga like Crayon Shin Chan, pokemon which are made keeping children in mind Death Note, and Naruto which mostly caters to adults.

Manga has many genres and each genre has many subgenres so if you love sports there’s a manga for that, if you love cooking there’s a manga for that and even if you are a naughty person there is a manga for that also (ecchi).

Easily Available Online To Read: Manga Comic

About a decade ago if you wanted to read a comic or manga you had to buy a hard copy from a store but now with the emergence of streaming services like Netflix, Crunchyroll, Amazon Prime Video, and many more it’s much easier to read manga, anime and comics.

You can read manga comics for free and some services offer a monthly fee for reading as many as you like which is still very cheap compared to actually buying hard copies.

And as a result, many more people have started reading them which in turn causes that popularity.

They are Fun And Entertaining To Read: Comic Manga

What more reason do you need other than this to start reading manga and comics?

They are fun to read and able to make us forget all our worries in today’s lifestyle people do need a way to forget the tension and that’s why they read manga manhwa or comics.

And this also results in popularity.

Manga Vs Comic

So now we understand that both manga and comics both are very popular worldwide but among them which one is better we will look at it now.

First, what is manga and comic?

So manga is the name given to the black and white colored graphical novels which are written from right to left.

There is not any particular age group for whom it’s specifically written, you can find manga for ages 4 to old age person.

In manga, there is a huge variety of genres from superheroes, sports, ecchi, romance, action, and many more and this genre each has many subgenres.

Comics as we all know are Western graphical novels they first started as black and white but nowadays they are mostly coloured they are written in English therefore their panels are from left to right.

There are not many genres in comics as far as I know. Mostly you will find action, superheroes, and romance in them.

They are mostly written for kids and there is an adult comic that is only for 18+.

So I will put down the things which make both of them different from each other

Difference between Comic and Manga

• Stories
• Japanese heroes vs. American comic heroes
• Characters
• Way of writing
• Length
• Focus on details
• Easiness to follow the story
• Cultures they present

Stories

In terms of stories manga and comic both have their unique taste.

Comics are mostly based on superhero characters like Superman Batman, and Spiderman. I’m not saying all comics are based on superheroes but they are the most widely known.

Comics don’t have a chronological order of story going on maybe if their sales go down they bring a new superhero, and send the Mc to another universe like the time when Captain America became a Hydra agent, the Avengers turned into Hulks and this all make it overwhelming for a new reader.

They actually don’t have a story after every random comic they make a completely new story that doesn’t relate to the previous story.

But when we talk about manga they all are written in chronological order even if a manga has 1000 chapters if you read from the beginning you can easily know all about that manga.

Japanese hero vs. American Comic hero

In comics, the hero is always overpowered characters they start from a point from where they can develop like Superman, spiderman, Thor, etc.

There is no scope for them to work hard to improve and in order to make the story interesting rather than making the hero train the story brings an even stronger villain.

In Japanese manga, the hero never starts off as OP, only in a few genres where the MC has to be OP like in isekai, but most of the hero has a scope for development.

The best example of this is Goku we all know how he was just a child when Dragon Ball started first he trained his martial arts under master roshi.

He kept on training then even now in Dragon Ball Super Goku is still training to become even stronger.

There are many manga where we see this in One Piece, Naruto, Fairy Tail, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, Bleach, and many more.

Characters

In comics, the main focus has always been given to the MC, on his story his powers his fights, and so on.

But we never or Seldom do we get to know the story about any other side characters.

Only after that side character takes the place of the hero do we know more about him.

This we can see in the case of Batman x Robin, where Batman was a hero not much was known about Robin his story background only starts after Batman leaves and he becomes the savior of Gotham.

In the manga however, we see the back story of every side character as well as the story of villains, and manga anime does it the best.

By telling us the reason for villains sometimes we get confused if the villains should fail or not.

Way of Writing

This is the basic difference between the two.

Manga are always written from right to left and in order of upward to downward.

And in the manga, the dialogue is usually very less and most of the feeling is given for the audience to feel.

Comics are written in English therefore from right to left.

There paneling is not well defined sometimes a panel takes a huge page without any reason. And comic do dialogue very poorly sometimes the voice Bubble of a single character in one dialogue could have 70-80 words.

This makes it look very boring and unattractive.

Length

Comics are always much much shorter in length than compared to manga.

The comic may be in the form of a chapter or a book and another book will have another story.

Manga can go for more than 1000 chapters to complete a single story but it’s not boring in any way.

Focus on details

This one can be understood very easily from the image below.

Easy to follow through the story

Manga are always written in chronological order They can have many seasons but if a reader wants to know the story he can just start from chapter 1 and learn everything about the hero, the story creation, and the background.

Whereas in the comic the story doesn’t have any order which was the first in the series which is the last it’s very confusing, no story links to each other.

If an author was changed Superman could change from Superman to Super Hulk, Captain America could become a Hydra agent in another universe and so many stories that do not make sense.

So in simple words, manga are very easy to follow in terms of story, MCs’ backgrounds, and everything.

Cultures they show

Manga can show us the cultures from all around the world, Japanese, American, Indian, Korean, Chinese, nordic culture, and so on.

Comics as they are based in America mostly show is the culture of America.

Why Manga is better than comic

In my opinion, manga are always better than manga. And from the above difference I have given above you can understand why I say so.

And I will list all those reasons down below.

• Better story
• Great character development
• Easy to follow
• Awesome design and dynamic look
• Connects with all age groups
• Have content for all age groups
• Manga is the core of anime
• There are thousands of manga which is much more than comics

What is Manhwa?

So we have discussed manga and comics and how even though they are the same but only different because of the different cultures and art styles they represent.

Manga is the comic equivalent in Japan but not only Japan many other countries also have comic different forms which are different because of the culture of the country they show.

Manhwa and Manhua are such different comic variants manhwa is from Korea and Manhua is a comic from China.

Manhwa just like comics is colored.