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OA&M Rules and Anime/Manga Guide (v. 4) Updated 6/16/06
- Thread starter Ryoutarou
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Anime and Manga Guide
Formal----
San- Basic Japanese title, Japanese equivalent of Mr., Mrs., etc.
Chan- Used mainly when addressing a young girl. It's also often used in a taunting manner by older children on younger kids.
Dono- Teacher or lord
Sensei- Master or teacher, same meaning as dono.
Kun- Used when addressing a male.
When there is no word, just the actual name it means the two people are of a close relation, (I.E. family, friends)
Sempai- Your senior
-----------
Seiyuu- A VA or voice actor for a anime or movie.
Shounen- Boy, Male, Young.
Shoujo- Girl, Female,
Bishonen- Japanese for beautiful boy.
Bishoujo- Japanese for beautiful girl.
SD- Super deformed, in which a person is drawn with deformed proportions such large eyes, small head and body and such.
Yaoi/shonenai- A love between two men or boys which is part of a homosexual manga or anime.
Yuri/ shoujoai- Love between two females, or deep friendship between two females.
Manga- Comics, often most Japanese refer to everything in comic form, American comics as well, as manga.
Manga-ka- A manga author, the same as Doujinshika.
Anime- Short for animation, which can involve animation from around the world. The common used term for the word is Japanese animation.
OVA/OAV- Original Video Animation, Original Animation Video, this is the Japanese equivalency to direct to video.
Doujinshi- A fan manga, often a parody or play on a preexisting series, sometimes original as in the case with CLAMP's Rayearth manga. Often times a doujinshika or fan comic author will join a group or club. Conventions are often used as selling spots for up and coming Doujinka'.
Otaku- Basically, 'obsessive manner', not used alone for anime fans, but the term applies here as well. It can be used on anyone who is into something to an unhealthy degree.
Hentai- Usually meaning pervert, often used when one is referring to anime porn/manga porn.
Eechii- A more mild form of hentai.
Kaiju- Monster, beast, etc.
Super Robot- A anime style in which a robot is given awesome powers that cannot be explained, such as astroboy. Gundam shows are realistic in a sense so they fall into another category.
Space operas-The larger-than-life-characters, epic stories, political intrigue, simple classic appeal, and so much more endear those kind of shows. Macross and Gundam are two of the more well known anime of this genre.
Mecha- Used when talking about any form of robot.
Biseinen- Straight translation for a beautiful young adult.
Bushido- A code of ethics for Japanese warriors, or more often referred to as the Samurai code of conduct or chivalry.
Chibi- Super deformed, often referring to a character with a small body and oversized head and eyes. Used to make characters look cute.
Daijobu- Japanese for 'Okay' 'alright' 'safe'
Gaijin- foreigner
Gi-Martial arts uniform
Golden week- Running from April 29th to May 5th . It is made up of four major holidays, Green Day, Children's day, Between Day, and Constitution Day.
[ Green Day- April 29th, celebrating the birth of a nature loving Japanese emperor.
Constitution Day - Celebrated on any given day of the Golden Week, it is used to celebrate the constitution that was formed after World War II.
Between Day- Japanese scripture states, if two or more major Japanese holidays are separated only by one day, the in-between day will also serve as a holiday.
Children's Day - The most recognizable of the four Golden Week holidays, families pray for positive fortune and health in their sons and daughters by hanging streamers and displaying Samurai dolls. ]
Gomen- Straight translation of the word sorry
Gumai- Straight translation of the word stupid.
Hai- Straight translation for yes.
Ja ne- Slang, often used by young Japanese people as a casual goodbye with their friends.
Kama- A type of scythe.
Kanji- The most important of the three main scripts used for Japanese writing. It combines Chinese and Korean characters. Kanji is made of ideograms, meaning each character does not represent a word, but rather each character has it�s own meaning. There are well over twenty thousand characters in Kanji, about two thousand to four thousand are needed to understand Japanese books, newspapers, etc.
Katakana- The most basic of the three written languages. It's creation came around in the ninth century. It was the first form of written Japanese, it uses basic characters not found in Kanji. There are about forty six characters in the Katakana alphabet.
Kawaii- Straight translation of cute.
Kawaiku nai- Not cute.
Keiro Hi No/ Keiro No Hi- Known as 'elders day' in Japan, it is used to show reverence for the elderly and those who have passed. Japanese residents who have celebrated their 70th birthday are given gifts from young people in their cities.
Kenkoku Kinen Bi/Kignsetsu- Celebrates the founding of the country of Japan on Febuary 11th.
Kisama- Used when mad at someone, it means "you" but in a rude manner, often associated with bastard.
Kudasai- Straight translation for please.
Kuso- Vulgarity, often used for the insult involving feces
Lemon-Romantic fanfic.
Naginata- A bladed staff often carried by monks for protection in traveling to villages.
Nani- Straight translation for what.
Romanji- Romanized text, using phonetic alphabet of the Western world and not the character based system of the Eastern world.
Sai- A three pronged fork like knife made of metal, often it is not sharpened, used for practice.
Sakura- Straight translation of Cherry Blossom. Often known as the trademark of a Samurai.
Setsuban- The eve of a new spring marks the seasons changing into spring, usually help on Febuary 3rd, 4th, or 5th.
Shakujo- A staff with a large metal ring at the tip, the large ring has several smaller rings coupled into it. Used to keep insects away and small animals. Carried mainly by Zen- Buddhist monks.
Shinjuku- A suburb of Tokyo.
Umi No Hi- Ocean Day- Celebrated on the 3rd Monday of every July. Celebrates the return of Meiji on 1876.
Youma- Japanese for ghost.
Notiable Mangaka-
Trindad of Manga
These men are considered to be the finest mangaka of the 19th century. They truly paved the way for new generation manga, and showed the world that animation and comics were not only children's media, but also something that can be used as a great tool. They have all passed away sadly, each one of these men showed the world political, racial, humanity issues. They brought a great understanding of who or what this world is.
Kazaka house- An apartment that was inhabited by 15 mangaka from 1945-1950. The apartment was the home of the three greats for five years. The other mangaka also went on to achieve great things, but these three are the godfathers of the medium.
Mitsuteru Yokoyama- Yokoyama was known as the godfather of the magical girl genre. He created 'little with girl Sally' one of the first known anime that can be grouped into this category. He is also well known for creating one of the first Japanese super robot titles, Tesuojin 28 AKA Gigantor. Tesuojin 28spanned some 15 volumes over ten years and was made into an anime, and again remade time and again. In 2004 a live action movie was created, Yokoyama was to have some say in this, but died before anything could develop. Yokoyama's body was found early Sunday morning in September of last year, the cause of his death is attributed to a fitre started by a lit cigarette that was found next to his bed.
Shoutarou (Isinomori)Shinomori -was the comic book artist responsible for creating most of the Japanese superheroes of the 1970s, including the Kamen Rider, Skullman, Kikaider and Cyborg 009. He is thought of as the godfather of the super hero genre in Japan. He created Sentai, and political manga works know as Cybernetic Solider 009 AKA Cyborg 009, it was thought to be his greatest life's work, but he died in 1998 before finishing it. He along with Tezuka are what made the anime and manga world what they are today, they set out to show the world a truly different means of entertainment and getting certain messages across. He was born January 25, he died 1938- January 28 1998. His cause of death was believed to have been heart failure.
Osamu Tezuka- Gained popularity as a manga writer and illustrator up through the 1950s. He is widely credited as the most influential animator in Japan and, indeed, his career parallels the rise of the Japanese animation industry. Inspired by his great love for cartoon animation, Disney in particular (it's said he saw Walt Disney's Bambi over 70 times), in 1961 he set up Music Studios, a production company that would help would be animator Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) become a regular in the anime world. Tezuka is sometimes contrasted with Disney in the aspect that Tezuka was able to keep a fresh and original spin on everything he worked on. His great love of was teaching and helping children. He obtained a pediatricians licensees for this sometime in the 40s. Soon he gave up this career to pursue art. He was born on November 3rd, 1228 and died of a gall stone infection on February 9th 1989. His nickname was often 'The God of Animation" which is a suitable title for someone that has had as much of an impact on the world as he has.
CLAMP is a group of creators, each specializing in one or more areas. These ladies are well known for several manga and anime blockbusters. Now here is a brief summery of what each one member does.
Nanase Ohkawa: In charge of original story, script and design.
Mokona Apapa: In charge of drawing and illustration.
Nekoi Mick: In charge of drawing and illustration as well
Satsuki Igarashi: In charge of design, development and assistant to drawing and illustration.
These are all the current members of CLAMP, the original team was started in the late 80's and had a group of 15 to its credit. Over time some members went off into different careers. There have been some members who were speculated to have left because of a fight within the group. The current members of CLAMP have all improved greatly from their past forms.
CLAMP started out as a doujinshi group, they had a string of one shot manga that were not popular. Their first big break through came with a doujinshi known as RG Veda. It ran for a good number of volumes and was picked up by an animation studio. This marked the first time CLAMP had a doujinshi of theirs animated, it also marked the first doujinshi ever to be animated. After this, CLAMP grew in success with a string of one shots, but then their big break from doujinshi club to full fledged mangaka came with a little series called Magic Knight Rayearth. It ran for three volumes and spawned a second three-volume sequel known as Magic Knight Rayearth II. This was picked up for a full anime, it was animated in 1993 and thus CLAMP had finally become well known.
After MKR and MKR II, Clamp started a series of manga in their own CLAMP-verse each one was loosely connected to the last one, usually centering around a school. This universe had four series, Clamp school defenders, Clamp school detectives, Clamp school kids, and Clamp school paranormal detectives. Only one of these was animated, the first detectives manga became a 27 episode anime.
Some of the lesser known CLAMP manga is Suki: A like story, it has beautiful art and a good story, Man of many faces.
In 1996 CLAMP was about to make history and become the worldwide team we know them as today. In the last October issue of Kodansha, CLAMP premiered with a new manga, their first in two years. Their manga was called Cardcaptor Sakura, the story of an 11-year-old girl. It was something new in Japan, before the monster craze would hit the year after. The plot was simple and complex at the same time. The art had a good simplicity to it. It is widely credited as being the most popular girl's manga ever. Of course a good number of boys liked it as well.
After the first story arc of CCS came to a close, the manga was animated. It had no problems with filler, but it did have the given movie feature, it was given two movies, each that had something that greatly effect the story. The anime ran for 71 episodes and ended about a year after the manga did. To date no manga has been as popular for CLAMP as CCS.
After some more manga like, Chobits, Angelic Layer, and Syo, CLAMP once again became great with the premiere of what could have been their most popular manga ever, even rivaling CCS. The manga was called Clover. The art was simple, but the story was rich in plot and diversity from any of their past works. As I said, it COULD have been better than CCS, the reason it wasn't is simple, the magazine that had been running Clover was canceled soon after volume 4 came out. CLAMP has no intentions of restarting the Manga at the moment. So this will join X in their unfinished manga area.
2003 saw new light for CLAMP as they did something they had never done, they created an alternate world for CCS and all of their other works. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles is an alternate take on CCS with mostly the same people in it, but with Syaoran taking the leading role now. At least one person from each of their manga has appeared in this manga. It currently has 8 volumes of manga and volume 9 is running in the magazine at the moment. It is only a matter of time before the manga is animated, as it has become the most popular manga in the magazine it is running in, even more so than XXXholic.
At the moment, CLAMP has three manga running in three different magazines. Tsubasa RC, XXXHolic and Legal Drug.
Anime Cinema-
There are many types of anime cinema, but today I'm gonna focus on the three largest types.
1) Yearly movie- A yearly movie is just that, a movie that comes once a year, for long running anime such as One Piece and Pokemon, a movie is usually made once a year or so. Generally, these movies will have no effect on the series. Many movie directors believe that by doing this, they cut their fans off that can't go to the movies, and they felt that ratings from the TV are often better when any important events are left to the anime. The yearly movies are also thought to be a sign to mark roughly how well an anime is doing. At most events a special item is given out with the price of the ticket, depending on whether you buy it in advance or at the door, your item will vary in quality.
2) Given Movies- these things can get to be a big hassle, these are movies in which major events of the series take place in the actual movie. Not a favorite of fans for obvious reasons, but some do see a plus side to this type of movie. Plus side being that you can get the experience of the anime in big screen format, this is usually due to the better animation in the movie. These are also classed as unusable movies, which often have events occurring in seemingly s conflicting manner with that of that of the anime or manga.
3) Stand alone- These tend to be one shot movies. They are often self contained and are able to tell the entire story within the one to two hours. The animation is generally miles above that used in most anime, even that of animation used in yearly movies. These movies often gain notable praise and are thought to be the cream of the crop in the anime movie world. Higher budget means better animation, better music, just about anything better than that of yearly of given movies.
Filler
Okay, the essence of a filler is this, manga based anime are animated at a normal rate of three manga episodes for one anime episode. As you can see this might be a bit of trouble later on, if the anime starts long after the manga started,then fillers will not be a problem for a good while, if ever. Now for other manga such as Fullmetal Alchemist which runs in a monthly magazine, which was only at volume 4 when the anime counterpart started, you can see the problem. Around episode 20 or 30 is when the anime had to go into filler. The problem was that it started so early after the manga did, not even a year later. So the anime ran for 52 episodes, half of which played no part in the original story. Then there is the anime such as Rurouni Kenshin. It was going fine until the Kyoto arc ended. After that it had to go into a filler, and the manga was just not going at a fast enough pace, so it had to go into filler upon filler for 30 weeks until it finally got cut. The final arc was animated in a movie, but it was not even close to being true to the manga story.
------------
Sports manga
Untill very recently, the past 15 years actually. Sports manga and anime hadn't been taken very serious. It was thought for a manga to be good it needed Shounen style fighting and story. Not the case, in the mid 80's a first time mangaka made his debut with his manga Atskun. A manga about a young boy going from a simple high school baseball team to going through college and trying out for the big leagues. To date the manga has not been animated, and there are currently no plans to animate it. The manga still runs weekly and is at volume 92(a little over 400 chapters I think). This was one of the first breakout hit sports manga. It quickly became the number one manga in its magazine. Which wasnt saying much, because at the time it was full of lackluster manga. But in time it did gain HUGE popularity and thousands of fan letters have been sent in to the mangaka over the years.
Once this manga came it made it a little easier for sports manga to be accepted, they were not as popular as Atskun or even other shounen manga for that. Until 1994 sports manga was not a real priority or popular genre. But in '94 a new manga came, a soccer manga by the name of Captain Tsubasa this was a manga about a man trying to become a pro player. To date it's been called one of the most important sports manga ever, because this was the one that opened the door to other mangaka of sports. The manga ran for 15 volumes, had a anime made, a LOT of merchandise, and good selling merchandise at that. It even had a prequel anime made. In 2001 the manga returned with Captain Tsubasa: Road to 2002 Which was made for the 2002 soccer World Cup. That manga is still running at 17 volumes.
Other great sports manga such as Prince of Tennis, WildCat, and Slam Dunk have also paved the way for many mangaka of sports. There are also some manga that people consider sports even though many others do not. Such manga are Hikaru No Go and Iron Wok Janu. These may not really be sports manga but they did have a long run.
So, with the mangaka of CP and Atskun, the door for future sports mangaka was opeaned. Many hundreds of manga and anime about sports have come in gone in the years since, but these have also become greatly more popular due to previous works like Atskun and Tsubasa.
----
There are many people with a misguided view on what makes an anime mature. Many think that if you have gore and swearing an anime is mature, no that only means that you have a somewhat dirty story. I have seen many anime that had little to no violence and almost no swearing and was more mature then a anime that had a swear every other word. Story is the keyword; it is what drives your attention and grabs you to a certain work.
Although it is sometimes necessary to have violence or death to properly portray reality it is not always needed. A good example of this would be our very own pokemon anime. There are many times when the reality of death and importance of other things in life a shown. Thought when it is shown, it is most often in the form of a movie. Now on anime that has violence and other things, such as the EVA anime. It was thought to be one of the greatest psychological anime ever made. Director Hideki Anno used MANY religious refrences to show what people really want and what they will do to obtain their goals.
There are other anime that show the importance or unnecessary use of war, such as the Gundam anime. Most of the Gundam deal with political issues and reasons behind war. Although many times the protagonist themselves are flawed in their beliefs it shows that once they realize it they come to a crossroads. To continue fighting for what they have been at for so many years, or to change and fight for a new cause. Often times the hero ends up split and is the center of a controversy.
The violence in a Gundam show usually depends on the situation, though it is a given fact that it is war and the anime isn't afraid to show that people do die in war. Many times this can mean, the hero's love interest, family, and friends, even the hero themselves. War isn't a pretty thing and this anime isn't afraid to show that. It can also show its maturity by doing something that so few anime do. The show itself has a protagonist, but that doesn't mean that the protagonist is good. Protagonists are simply people that the show has a main focus on, and the antagonist is not necessarily the villain in the grand scale of things. A good example are the first two Gundam shows, Gundam the original from 1979 showed the Earth Federation as the 'good guys' and the Principality Of Zeon as the 'bad guys'.
In the following anime, Zeta Gundam, the E.F. is shown as the villain and the Zeon are shown as the middle ground. With the Anti Earth Union Group as the 'good guys'. In this sense the people that were heros in Z Gundam would have been shown as villains in the original anime. So the Gundam anime and many other anime have shown that sometimes a anime does need violence and death to properly portray something as grim as war.
There has been one Gundam with very little fighting, Gundam 0080:War in the Pocket. It did what Z Gundam did, kind of. A young boy befriends a Zeon solider trying to return to his base. The Zeon eventually discovers a new Gundam being held on the colony, and thus he finds out the Zeon's plan. So the protagonist of this Gundam anime actually was a young child and a Zeon solider. This Gundam was not about showing war itself, but about a young boy learning the grim reality that war holds.
Formal----
San- Basic Japanese title, Japanese equivalent of Mr., Mrs., etc.
Chan- Used mainly when addressing a young girl. It's also often used in a taunting manner by older children on younger kids.
Dono- Teacher or lord
Sensei- Master or teacher, same meaning as dono.
Kun- Used when addressing a male.
When there is no word, just the actual name it means the two people are of a close relation, (I.E. family, friends)
Sempai- Your senior
-----------
Seiyuu- A VA or voice actor for a anime or movie.
Shounen- Boy, Male, Young.
Shoujo- Girl, Female,
Bishonen- Japanese for beautiful boy.
Bishoujo- Japanese for beautiful girl.
SD- Super deformed, in which a person is drawn with deformed proportions such large eyes, small head and body and such.
Yaoi/shonenai- A love between two men or boys which is part of a homosexual manga or anime.
Yuri/ shoujoai- Love between two females, or deep friendship between two females.
Manga- Comics, often most Japanese refer to everything in comic form, American comics as well, as manga.
Manga-ka- A manga author, the same as Doujinshika.
Anime- Short for animation, which can involve animation from around the world. The common used term for the word is Japanese animation.
OVA/OAV- Original Video Animation, Original Animation Video, this is the Japanese equivalency to direct to video.
Doujinshi- A fan manga, often a parody or play on a preexisting series, sometimes original as in the case with CLAMP's Rayearth manga. Often times a doujinshika or fan comic author will join a group or club. Conventions are often used as selling spots for up and coming Doujinka'.
Otaku- Basically, 'obsessive manner', not used alone for anime fans, but the term applies here as well. It can be used on anyone who is into something to an unhealthy degree.
Hentai- Usually meaning pervert, often used when one is referring to anime porn/manga porn.
Eechii- A more mild form of hentai.
Kaiju- Monster, beast, etc.
Super Robot- A anime style in which a robot is given awesome powers that cannot be explained, such as astroboy. Gundam shows are realistic in a sense so they fall into another category.
Space operas-The larger-than-life-characters, epic stories, political intrigue, simple classic appeal, and so much more endear those kind of shows. Macross and Gundam are two of the more well known anime of this genre.
Mecha- Used when talking about any form of robot.
Biseinen- Straight translation for a beautiful young adult.
Bushido- A code of ethics for Japanese warriors, or more often referred to as the Samurai code of conduct or chivalry.
Chibi- Super deformed, often referring to a character with a small body and oversized head and eyes. Used to make characters look cute.
Daijobu- Japanese for 'Okay' 'alright' 'safe'
Gaijin- foreigner
Gi-Martial arts uniform
Golden week- Running from April 29th to May 5th . It is made up of four major holidays, Green Day, Children's day, Between Day, and Constitution Day.
[ Green Day- April 29th, celebrating the birth of a nature loving Japanese emperor.
Constitution Day - Celebrated on any given day of the Golden Week, it is used to celebrate the constitution that was formed after World War II.
Between Day- Japanese scripture states, if two or more major Japanese holidays are separated only by one day, the in-between day will also serve as a holiday.
Children's Day - The most recognizable of the four Golden Week holidays, families pray for positive fortune and health in their sons and daughters by hanging streamers and displaying Samurai dolls. ]
Gomen- Straight translation of the word sorry
Gumai- Straight translation of the word stupid.
Hai- Straight translation for yes.
Ja ne- Slang, often used by young Japanese people as a casual goodbye with their friends.
Kama- A type of scythe.
Kanji- The most important of the three main scripts used for Japanese writing. It combines Chinese and Korean characters. Kanji is made of ideograms, meaning each character does not represent a word, but rather each character has it�s own meaning. There are well over twenty thousand characters in Kanji, about two thousand to four thousand are needed to understand Japanese books, newspapers, etc.
Katakana- The most basic of the three written languages. It's creation came around in the ninth century. It was the first form of written Japanese, it uses basic characters not found in Kanji. There are about forty six characters in the Katakana alphabet.
Kawaii- Straight translation of cute.
Kawaiku nai- Not cute.
Keiro Hi No/ Keiro No Hi- Known as 'elders day' in Japan, it is used to show reverence for the elderly and those who have passed. Japanese residents who have celebrated their 70th birthday are given gifts from young people in their cities.
Kenkoku Kinen Bi/Kignsetsu- Celebrates the founding of the country of Japan on Febuary 11th.
Kisama- Used when mad at someone, it means "you" but in a rude manner, often associated with bastard.
Kudasai- Straight translation for please.
Kuso- Vulgarity, often used for the insult involving feces
Lemon-Romantic fanfic.
Naginata- A bladed staff often carried by monks for protection in traveling to villages.
Nani- Straight translation for what.
Romanji- Romanized text, using phonetic alphabet of the Western world and not the character based system of the Eastern world.
Sai- A three pronged fork like knife made of metal, often it is not sharpened, used for practice.
Sakura- Straight translation of Cherry Blossom. Often known as the trademark of a Samurai.
Setsuban- The eve of a new spring marks the seasons changing into spring, usually help on Febuary 3rd, 4th, or 5th.
Shakujo- A staff with a large metal ring at the tip, the large ring has several smaller rings coupled into it. Used to keep insects away and small animals. Carried mainly by Zen- Buddhist monks.
Shinjuku- A suburb of Tokyo.
Umi No Hi- Ocean Day- Celebrated on the 3rd Monday of every July. Celebrates the return of Meiji on 1876.
Youma- Japanese for ghost.
Notiable Mangaka-
Trindad of Manga
These men are considered to be the finest mangaka of the 19th century. They truly paved the way for new generation manga, and showed the world that animation and comics were not only children's media, but also something that can be used as a great tool. They have all passed away sadly, each one of these men showed the world political, racial, humanity issues. They brought a great understanding of who or what this world is.
Kazaka house- An apartment that was inhabited by 15 mangaka from 1945-1950. The apartment was the home of the three greats for five years. The other mangaka also went on to achieve great things, but these three are the godfathers of the medium.
Mitsuteru Yokoyama- Yokoyama was known as the godfather of the magical girl genre. He created 'little with girl Sally' one of the first known anime that can be grouped into this category. He is also well known for creating one of the first Japanese super robot titles, Tesuojin 28 AKA Gigantor. Tesuojin 28spanned some 15 volumes over ten years and was made into an anime, and again remade time and again. In 2004 a live action movie was created, Yokoyama was to have some say in this, but died before anything could develop. Yokoyama's body was found early Sunday morning in September of last year, the cause of his death is attributed to a fitre started by a lit cigarette that was found next to his bed.
Shoutarou (Isinomori)Shinomori -was the comic book artist responsible for creating most of the Japanese superheroes of the 1970s, including the Kamen Rider, Skullman, Kikaider and Cyborg 009. He is thought of as the godfather of the super hero genre in Japan. He created Sentai, and political manga works know as Cybernetic Solider 009 AKA Cyborg 009, it was thought to be his greatest life's work, but he died in 1998 before finishing it. He along with Tezuka are what made the anime and manga world what they are today, they set out to show the world a truly different means of entertainment and getting certain messages across. He was born January 25, he died 1938- January 28 1998. His cause of death was believed to have been heart failure.
Osamu Tezuka- Gained popularity as a manga writer and illustrator up through the 1950s. He is widely credited as the most influential animator in Japan and, indeed, his career parallels the rise of the Japanese animation industry. Inspired by his great love for cartoon animation, Disney in particular (it's said he saw Walt Disney's Bambi over 70 times), in 1961 he set up Music Studios, a production company that would help would be animator Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira) become a regular in the anime world. Tezuka is sometimes contrasted with Disney in the aspect that Tezuka was able to keep a fresh and original spin on everything he worked on. His great love of was teaching and helping children. He obtained a pediatricians licensees for this sometime in the 40s. Soon he gave up this career to pursue art. He was born on November 3rd, 1228 and died of a gall stone infection on February 9th 1989. His nickname was often 'The God of Animation" which is a suitable title for someone that has had as much of an impact on the world as he has.
CLAMP is a group of creators, each specializing in one or more areas. These ladies are well known for several manga and anime blockbusters. Now here is a brief summery of what each one member does.
Nanase Ohkawa: In charge of original story, script and design.
Mokona Apapa: In charge of drawing and illustration.
Nekoi Mick: In charge of drawing and illustration as well
Satsuki Igarashi: In charge of design, development and assistant to drawing and illustration.
These are all the current members of CLAMP, the original team was started in the late 80's and had a group of 15 to its credit. Over time some members went off into different careers. There have been some members who were speculated to have left because of a fight within the group. The current members of CLAMP have all improved greatly from their past forms.
CLAMP started out as a doujinshi group, they had a string of one shot manga that were not popular. Their first big break through came with a doujinshi known as RG Veda. It ran for a good number of volumes and was picked up by an animation studio. This marked the first time CLAMP had a doujinshi of theirs animated, it also marked the first doujinshi ever to be animated. After this, CLAMP grew in success with a string of one shots, but then their big break from doujinshi club to full fledged mangaka came with a little series called Magic Knight Rayearth. It ran for three volumes and spawned a second three-volume sequel known as Magic Knight Rayearth II. This was picked up for a full anime, it was animated in 1993 and thus CLAMP had finally become well known.
After MKR and MKR II, Clamp started a series of manga in their own CLAMP-verse each one was loosely connected to the last one, usually centering around a school. This universe had four series, Clamp school defenders, Clamp school detectives, Clamp school kids, and Clamp school paranormal detectives. Only one of these was animated, the first detectives manga became a 27 episode anime.
Some of the lesser known CLAMP manga is Suki: A like story, it has beautiful art and a good story, Man of many faces.
In 1996 CLAMP was about to make history and become the worldwide team we know them as today. In the last October issue of Kodansha, CLAMP premiered with a new manga, their first in two years. Their manga was called Cardcaptor Sakura, the story of an 11-year-old girl. It was something new in Japan, before the monster craze would hit the year after. The plot was simple and complex at the same time. The art had a good simplicity to it. It is widely credited as being the most popular girl's manga ever. Of course a good number of boys liked it as well.
After the first story arc of CCS came to a close, the manga was animated. It had no problems with filler, but it did have the given movie feature, it was given two movies, each that had something that greatly effect the story. The anime ran for 71 episodes and ended about a year after the manga did. To date no manga has been as popular for CLAMP as CCS.
After some more manga like, Chobits, Angelic Layer, and Syo, CLAMP once again became great with the premiere of what could have been their most popular manga ever, even rivaling CCS. The manga was called Clover. The art was simple, but the story was rich in plot and diversity from any of their past works. As I said, it COULD have been better than CCS, the reason it wasn't is simple, the magazine that had been running Clover was canceled soon after volume 4 came out. CLAMP has no intentions of restarting the Manga at the moment. So this will join X in their unfinished manga area.
2003 saw new light for CLAMP as they did something they had never done, they created an alternate world for CCS and all of their other works. Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles is an alternate take on CCS with mostly the same people in it, but with Syaoran taking the leading role now. At least one person from each of their manga has appeared in this manga. It currently has 8 volumes of manga and volume 9 is running in the magazine at the moment. It is only a matter of time before the manga is animated, as it has become the most popular manga in the magazine it is running in, even more so than XXXholic.
At the moment, CLAMP has three manga running in three different magazines. Tsubasa RC, XXXHolic and Legal Drug.
Anime Cinema-
There are many types of anime cinema, but today I'm gonna focus on the three largest types.
1) Yearly movie- A yearly movie is just that, a movie that comes once a year, for long running anime such as One Piece and Pokemon, a movie is usually made once a year or so. Generally, these movies will have no effect on the series. Many movie directors believe that by doing this, they cut their fans off that can't go to the movies, and they felt that ratings from the TV are often better when any important events are left to the anime. The yearly movies are also thought to be a sign to mark roughly how well an anime is doing. At most events a special item is given out with the price of the ticket, depending on whether you buy it in advance or at the door, your item will vary in quality.
2) Given Movies- these things can get to be a big hassle, these are movies in which major events of the series take place in the actual movie. Not a favorite of fans for obvious reasons, but some do see a plus side to this type of movie. Plus side being that you can get the experience of the anime in big screen format, this is usually due to the better animation in the movie. These are also classed as unusable movies, which often have events occurring in seemingly s conflicting manner with that of that of the anime or manga.
3) Stand alone- These tend to be one shot movies. They are often self contained and are able to tell the entire story within the one to two hours. The animation is generally miles above that used in most anime, even that of animation used in yearly movies. These movies often gain notable praise and are thought to be the cream of the crop in the anime movie world. Higher budget means better animation, better music, just about anything better than that of yearly of given movies.
Filler
Okay, the essence of a filler is this, manga based anime are animated at a normal rate of three manga episodes for one anime episode. As you can see this might be a bit of trouble later on, if the anime starts long after the manga started,then fillers will not be a problem for a good while, if ever. Now for other manga such as Fullmetal Alchemist which runs in a monthly magazine, which was only at volume 4 when the anime counterpart started, you can see the problem. Around episode 20 or 30 is when the anime had to go into filler. The problem was that it started so early after the manga did, not even a year later. So the anime ran for 52 episodes, half of which played no part in the original story. Then there is the anime such as Rurouni Kenshin. It was going fine until the Kyoto arc ended. After that it had to go into a filler, and the manga was just not going at a fast enough pace, so it had to go into filler upon filler for 30 weeks until it finally got cut. The final arc was animated in a movie, but it was not even close to being true to the manga story.
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Sports manga
Untill very recently, the past 15 years actually. Sports manga and anime hadn't been taken very serious. It was thought for a manga to be good it needed Shounen style fighting and story. Not the case, in the mid 80's a first time mangaka made his debut with his manga Atskun. A manga about a young boy going from a simple high school baseball team to going through college and trying out for the big leagues. To date the manga has not been animated, and there are currently no plans to animate it. The manga still runs weekly and is at volume 92(a little over 400 chapters I think). This was one of the first breakout hit sports manga. It quickly became the number one manga in its magazine. Which wasnt saying much, because at the time it was full of lackluster manga. But in time it did gain HUGE popularity and thousands of fan letters have been sent in to the mangaka over the years.
Once this manga came it made it a little easier for sports manga to be accepted, they were not as popular as Atskun or even other shounen manga for that. Until 1994 sports manga was not a real priority or popular genre. But in '94 a new manga came, a soccer manga by the name of Captain Tsubasa this was a manga about a man trying to become a pro player. To date it's been called one of the most important sports manga ever, because this was the one that opened the door to other mangaka of sports. The manga ran for 15 volumes, had a anime made, a LOT of merchandise, and good selling merchandise at that. It even had a prequel anime made. In 2001 the manga returned with Captain Tsubasa: Road to 2002 Which was made for the 2002 soccer World Cup. That manga is still running at 17 volumes.
Other great sports manga such as Prince of Tennis, WildCat, and Slam Dunk have also paved the way for many mangaka of sports. There are also some manga that people consider sports even though many others do not. Such manga are Hikaru No Go and Iron Wok Janu. These may not really be sports manga but they did have a long run.
So, with the mangaka of CP and Atskun, the door for future sports mangaka was opeaned. Many hundreds of manga and anime about sports have come in gone in the years since, but these have also become greatly more popular due to previous works like Atskun and Tsubasa.
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There are many people with a misguided view on what makes an anime mature. Many think that if you have gore and swearing an anime is mature, no that only means that you have a somewhat dirty story. I have seen many anime that had little to no violence and almost no swearing and was more mature then a anime that had a swear every other word. Story is the keyword; it is what drives your attention and grabs you to a certain work.
Although it is sometimes necessary to have violence or death to properly portray reality it is not always needed. A good example of this would be our very own pokemon anime. There are many times when the reality of death and importance of other things in life a shown. Thought when it is shown, it is most often in the form of a movie. Now on anime that has violence and other things, such as the EVA anime. It was thought to be one of the greatest psychological anime ever made. Director Hideki Anno used MANY religious refrences to show what people really want and what they will do to obtain their goals.
There are other anime that show the importance or unnecessary use of war, such as the Gundam anime. Most of the Gundam deal with political issues and reasons behind war. Although many times the protagonist themselves are flawed in their beliefs it shows that once they realize it they come to a crossroads. To continue fighting for what they have been at for so many years, or to change and fight for a new cause. Often times the hero ends up split and is the center of a controversy.
The violence in a Gundam show usually depends on the situation, though it is a given fact that it is war and the anime isn't afraid to show that people do die in war. Many times this can mean, the hero's love interest, family, and friends, even the hero themselves. War isn't a pretty thing and this anime isn't afraid to show that. It can also show its maturity by doing something that so few anime do. The show itself has a protagonist, but that doesn't mean that the protagonist is good. Protagonists are simply people that the show has a main focus on, and the antagonist is not necessarily the villain in the grand scale of things. A good example are the first two Gundam shows, Gundam the original from 1979 showed the Earth Federation as the 'good guys' and the Principality Of Zeon as the 'bad guys'.
In the following anime, Zeta Gundam, the E.F. is shown as the villain and the Zeon are shown as the middle ground. With the Anti Earth Union Group as the 'good guys'. In this sense the people that were heros in Z Gundam would have been shown as villains in the original anime. So the Gundam anime and many other anime have shown that sometimes a anime does need violence and death to properly portray something as grim as war.
There has been one Gundam with very little fighting, Gundam 0080:War in the Pocket. It did what Z Gundam did, kind of. A young boy befriends a Zeon solider trying to return to his base. The Zeon eventually discovers a new Gundam being held on the colony, and thus he finds out the Zeon's plan. So the protagonist of this Gundam anime actually was a young child and a Zeon solider. This Gundam was not about showing war itself, but about a young boy learning the grim reality that war holds.
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