For about the last year or so, I've found myself reading more manga than American Comics. In fact, it's not even especially close. Why is that?
Well, I'm sure that I can pinpoint various reasons, including some things I said way back when this blog was more or less active, but I think it comes down to a few things. I'm just meandering and writing off the cuff here, so take it as it is.
First off, I enjoy that manga is so much more self contained than comics from the Big Two. Once upon a time, I really enjoyed the expansive universes that Marvel and DC had, where you had all kinds of characters across all kinds of books doing all kinds of things. There's still something neat about that, but frankly, I think it causes more headaches than anything.
I imagine a part of it is the simple marketing aspect. You want to push a new character? Give them a cameo in a bigger book! Who cares if it really fits that book or not, you need to find a way to work them in!
The deeper problem though is that it really creates way too much opportunity to crush the narrative flow. I've commented before on the problems that big events create on books. A book can really be cruising along, and then here comes the big event, and things start changing. It's worse when the entire universe gets rebooted. (See: DC).
On the other hand, most manga tends to be self-contained stories. The author is much more free to tell the story that they want to. They can build it, and bring it to a satisfying end on their own terms. I just read Servant x Service not long ago, and in the final volume, the author brought it to a very clean, unrushed ending, with the major subplots all dealt with in a very satisfying way. I'm sure manga authors get more than a few "editorial suggestions" along the way, but they don't seem to be nearly as destructive or disruptive as being part of the shared universes of Marvel and DC.
Of course, this is helped a great deal by the fact manga titles are closely tied to the author. If you're reading a Big Two book, you never know when the author or penciller will get changed for some unfathomable editorial reason, with who knows what results. You don't get that with manga in the same way. That helps again with the whole "keeping the narrative flow" idea.
Secondly, I do believe I'm getting fairly close to being heroed out. Oh, I still like the movies, and some of the manga I read are "heroic", but Manga have a great deal more freedom to be about pretty much anything. I've hugely enjoyed manga lately about "Love, grief and baseball", "Competitive Japanese game with cards," and "Working in a prefectural office" lately*, as just a few examples.
I imagine that largely goes to the fact that I've always been more interested in the characters than heroism or the like, and some of these books are fantastic character studies.
Now, I realize, that a great deal of what I've said here likely also applies to at least some Indie comics here in the US. A great deal of the Indie stuff I've seen has just been another guy's take on superheroes (Astro City, Irredeemable for instance), but I know that there's other stuff out there,and if you have suggestions, feel free to post them, I'm always willing to gake a gander.
* Cross Game, Chihayafuru, Servant x Service
