Week 10: Japanese comics

     This week I read a selection of 3 different works that were all rather different from each other. The work I was most familiar with was Death note, one of the two Manga I had ever read before, the other being Naruto ( you can tell I never had a serious manga phase.) The other two I read  this week was Battle Alita and Buddha Vol. 1. 

      Based on my limited and brief experience with Manga, I can uncover a few common threads between all of the works I have read and read this week. There are no shortages of speech bubbles and dialog within all works, and that is especially true whenever there is emotion. This is coupled with the ways that emotion and action are conveyed. All action and reaction is highly emphasized and exaggerated to show while telling. However, there is not always a huge amount of speech bubbles and dialog. On the contrary, one of the most unique things I have found in opposition of most western comics, is that there can be much more "silent frames" in Manga. Mostly in Battle Alita and Buddha, there were prolonged scenes of textless action and visual storytelling. 

     Despite manga often being seen as a kids comic, most that I have read have mature storylines and content. All three works I read had prominent themes about death and pain, something that while mentioned in western comics, is very rarely this prominent.