Slice of life is a genre that uses everyday situations as a form of entertainment. To some, slice of life can be considered boring, as the characters do mundane things such as: go to school, find part-time jobs, worry about careers, etc. However, this genre is a popular topic for mangakas to write about, so this article would discuss the appeal of slice of life, and why people watch or read it. Information can include: demographics, manga examples, and the formula for slice of life.
TV tropes is, as always, an excellent resource for this sort of discussion.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/SliceOfLife One part of Slice of Life that TVT mentions is its escapist qualities. The essential notion here is that when building a slice of life world, it may not necessarily reflect real life. Many people seem to personally define Slice of Life as a genre of the ordinary. The environment might be mundane, but viewers are not engaged by material more boring than their own lives. The characters have to bring humor, or drama, or something to the table. The lives of the characters have to be interesting. The context of Slice of Life stories function as a restriction to writers. Therefore, writing the setting should not require much thought. The writer must focus on the characters, keeping in mind what qualities of the characters--their dynamic--makes the story interesting. – pigrocket9 years ago
Two reasons: first, people are endlessly curious about the things they don't know. Imagine being a tourist in a country that you've never been to before, one that seems to exotic to you, say, Guatemala. Yet to the Guatemalans their country is their everyday; it may even be mundane to them. They, however, may find the perpetually grey, rainy England skies endlessly fascinating. Therein lies the appeal to the slice of life genre - everything through a stranger's eyes; someone else's small, normal, boring or annoying is your fascinating. It's a quick, easy and cheap way to escape your mundane life into someone else's, and there is none or little of the fake, touristy stuff. And second: everyone is a bit of a voyeur. Everyone. – lizardxu7 years ago
I believe a helpful look at its negatives would've made this piece richer. It's a bit too one-sided. – SarahKhan894 years ago
My Hero Academia first garnered attention when it gained a surprising amount of momentum soon after its debut in Shounen Jump, often being heralded as a spiritual successor to highly successful and soon-after ended shounen titles like Naruto and Bleach. Now, with one completed anime season and a second one ongoing, MHA can be seen everywhere in otaku culture, particularly in the realm of visual essay analysis videos posted on Youtube and elsewhere. All this, despite the fact that, as many fans and critics have pointed out, there's nothing particularly new or inventive about it. MHA takes almost every traditional shounen trope in the book and runs with them, using them to their greatest effects. It'd be interesting to pinpoint what some of those tropes are and how MHA uses them so effectively. The writer could also analyze how outside factors (like timing and anime adaptation) affected its popularity growth over the past 2-3 years.
I've heard extremely positive things said about this anime. I think I will begin watching it due to its use of these common tropes. In addition to this, being a spiritual successor to favourites such as Naruto and Bleach compel me even more. Great Topic! – AdilYoosuf7 years ago
I'm a huge fan of this series, I think one could focus on the characters add to My Hero Academia. – Jiraiyan7 years ago
In my opinion i think the popularity comes with its simplicity in that MHA seems to be a purer example of the heroes journey as well as a story making great use of the big dam heroes trope. When you take such a classic formula and add deconstruction along with a health dose of power scaling your bound to catch eyes. – Delebo6 years ago
For most avid manga-readers, there have been times when a joke has gone right over our heads, or it has seemed like a character is speaking repetitively. The main culprit of this is the way that Kanji resists interpretation. Research and analyze how Kanji's inability to be interpreted in a way that is universally accessible has affected art and pop culture as it relates to universal cultural understanding.
An excellent topic suggestion so you have my approval. As one who is presently learning Japanese I can certainly attest to how difficult Kanji can be to interpret, let alone translate (I use the term 'translate' advisedly). A small suggestion - it might also be worth noting that there are some young Japanese who have problems with interpreting Kanji. – Amyus7 years ago
this sounds terrific, there's a lot of phrases both serious and comedic that get muddied very easily by translation and shedding some light on some striking examples would be an interesting read for sure. – alliegardenia2 years ago
Any manga reader as well as many other people could name you the names of the 5 largest names in the manga industry. Fairy Tail, Dragon Ball, One Piece, Naruto, and Bleach. But how much of what we read is influenced by these iconic mangas and the elements they include? Just how much have these action packed, butt-kicking mangas warped the world of modern manga?
There's a lot to be said with a topic like this. You could even narrow the scope and just analyze how Dragon Ball has had an influence on all the others, because each of the other manga has drawn influence from Dragon Ball as the precursor. Manga and anime in later years have put more emphasis on the fighting aspect, but you still have big-breasted women, fan-service chapters/episodes, the main character frequently deus ex's themselves to stronger abilities, etc. – Nayr12309 years ago
I agree that you need to narrow down your topic. There has been many influential mangas for different genres, so it would be important to limit the scope. I think you are focusing on the battle manga, such as Dragon Ball, which may require examination of other classics like The Fist of Northern Stars, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, Sakigake Otokojuku, and others. – idleric9 years ago
Narrow your topic. For example, the tournament preparation and event theme in Dragon Ball is something mimicked in other popular anime's targeted towards a similar audience (for me, HunterxHunter). – JMIWrites9 years ago
It can easily be said that most of modern manga was inspired off of Dragon Ball, HunterxHunter and Yu Yu Hakasho. Super power manga as followed the same formula for almost 2 decades, perhaps longer, and I can say that a lot overlaps. However with the new manga, for example Boku no hero Academia, there are some traits that add a rejuvenated feel to it. – Khaotix8 years ago
Your question itself is weird. Those "5 big" aren't in any way the most largest names in the manga industry. Except maybe on the US market. However, Dragonball is the most important manga of your list since he basically is the reason why all the others exist: Manga wouldn't even be a thing in western world without Dragonball.
So to put it in an other way:
"How much did Dragonball influence One piece, Naruto, Fairy tail and Bleach".
Here is your answer: cinematographic sequences, pacing and editing of the scenes, power-ups, Nakama power, awesome Deus ex machina, tournaments, charismatic allies, bad guys who turn into friends, stylish battles, transformations, VEGETA and EXPLOSIONS.
An interesting question would be: "Which other manga influenced them?":
Kishimoto (writer of Naruto) took his inspiration from Dragon ball (DB), Jojo's bizarre adventure (JJBA), Japanese mythology, Ninku and Ghost in the Shell, and in turn inspired none except black clover and my hero academia maybe.
Fairy tail is basically a cluster*** of everything that has ever been successful in pop-culture (#fanservice), which explains it's popularity.
One piece is here thanks to western cartoons (Tex avery), JJBA and DB.
Bleach was inspired by DB, Saint-seiya, samourai movies, Japanese folklore. "What is the most influencable Shonen nekketsu manga ever?": Ashita no joe. A pioneer and a masterpiece – Tracel8 years ago
Something that I have noticed in all of my time watching anime, reading manga, and learning about popular culture in Japan, is that girls are extremely over-sexualized. You get this in the "jiggle physics" phenomenon that has struck anime, or the fact that many clothes that are sort of pop-cultre-y in Japan are like sexy versions of what little girls would wear (at least from what I see about Harajuku culture anyway), or even how animes or mangas that are supposed to have characters that are little girls get into really inappropriate situations, such as the little movie for Sword Art Online when they have the older girls grabbing Suguha's boobs at the pool when she's like 13-14 just because they are big (or, to use No Game, No Life as an example, show really inappropriate panty shots of what is supposed to be a little girl). I think examining how pop culture really over-sexualizes girls and women could point to how things need to change to create more of an equality in the culture that relies less on sex and boobs and more on women as people.
It would be good to look at things from a cultural point of view. What is it about the cultural that encourages the sexualization of young girls? Is it certain standards of girls that people find enticing, or is it just because it sells? – andreacr9 years ago
I think there is absolutely a place for obnoxious over-sexualization of characters. But I also believe there should be just as much selection for women as characters that aren't just jiggle objects. – bluishcatbag8 years ago
Like the old saying goes, "sex sells." And, in my opinion, I believe that is why there is so much sexualization of characters in anime and manga. However, as stated in your point, it is questionable why there is sexualization of young, underage girls. Like what andreacr stated before, culture has some parts on why anime sexualizes teenage girls. In Japan, the age of consensual sex is at 13 years old, but there are laws that makes it illegal for an adult to be in a sexual relationship with girls under the age of 17. But that's a whole different topic that I will get in later. Sexualizing characters is basically fanservice. However, this type of fanservice is mainly directed to male viewers, particularly shown in shonen or seinen animes/mangas which are the two most read or watched genre inside and outside of Japan. So a lot creators or mangakas believe that in order to appeal to men even more, they tend to sexualize female characters. But why young girls? In some cases, the characters that look like a teenage girl is in fact a grown woman in her mid to late 20s. It's basically just the youth factor that plays a role in some cases; the age-old idea that a younger woman is more desirable than an older woman. If the girl is a teenager, then that's a different ball game. As stated before, the age of sexual consent in Japan is 13, but an adult cannot have sex with girls under 17. So, as wrong as this may sound, the loophole is that it is legal in a few parts of Japan where you can watch pornography with girls under the age of 17 so long as they are 13 or older. However, Japan is cracking down on this lately and it is illegal in many parts of the country today. In the West, 13 is considered to be much too young, and those who are 13 are still considered by law to be children or adolescents, so some Western viewers do get uncomfortable watching underage girls put in sexual situations. And if you think about it, in most of these situations in anime, the girl is sometime unaware of the implications of the situation they are put in, or they feel just as uncomfortable but this is downplayed as a comedic scene (ie tsundere). Now this would stem back to the whole idea that innocence is sexy. A video on YouTube titled "Born Sexy Yesterday" does tackle this issue much better than my explanation. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0thpEyEwi80) And I wholeheartedly agree with what you are saying. Oversexualization can kill, and it does diminish the quality of the character. But instead of seeing an actual person, they are portrayed as this sort of sexual fantasy. – themessenger1518 years ago
It's a truism that in manga that there are manga suited to every topic and influence, from playing on a basketball team to the biography of Buddha or Adolf Hitler to manga about preparing food and drinking wine. But one subject area that doesn't seem to thrive in manga is Western style superheroes, at least not in the translated market. The closest analogue to Western superhero comics is the comic MAIL, which was a pretty successful iteration of the supernatural-mystery format seen variously in books like Dr Strange or Constantine. But the book didn't last very long, concluding after just three volumes. A manga like One-Punch Man feels more like a satire of conventional Western superhero comics. Is it that these comics don't exist in either country, or is it that they simply don't succeed in the US direct market because of competition from existing superhero properties? Or is there another, less obvious reason why Japanese superhero comics haven't succeeded in the US market?
My Hero Academia is a popular anime that has been noticeably influenced by Western superheroes. One of the main protagonists even bears a striking resemblance to Captain America. – ees7 years ago
I honestly do not understand what it says here. – T. Palomino2 years ago
Explore the ways in which Light Yagami's plan for the human race was effective. With the sheer number of criminals dying, what were some of the positive changes that the world saw? In what way could these changes have been sustained if Light was able to maintain sanity through the transition? Find the good in Yagami's fall from grace.
I believe the title Deathnote is generally written as "Death Note." Otherwise great topic (though possibly controversial) about a great show! – Connor Gregorich-Trevor9 years ago
I think the show was pretty clear about how Kira's work created change. Known criminals were removed and future criminals deterred but in the long run it was doing all this through fear. There will always be bad people and with Kira's influence around they would just learn to be smarter about their actions: do crime in secret and not get televised. I think the real question is, would this world have been sustainable? Would it just create worse "villains"? I personally wonder whether Light would have started adding bias to his selections (politicians etc.) and how that would be received by the populace? – Slaidey9 years ago
It was pretty clear that Light was not entirely sane from the beginning, the very first episode of the anime has him declaring himself God. There might be something to be said about the benefits of Light's approach, but that's a very subjective topic. – BoomBap9 years ago
If you want to argue in favour of Light's plan, it might be worth looking at real-world information on the effects of the death penalty and/or vigilantism on crime rates, since that's essentially what the Death Note was. It's one thing to argue that something was helpful in a fictional world, but drawing real-world parallels could make for a more full analysis. – ElijahBassett9 years ago
Manga length varies depending on the series, but some of the most popular manga series of all time are extremely long, but some say the quality does not remain consistent throughout.
My curiosity is how manga length can improve or detract from the strength of the overall narrative ( e.g. comparing one piece with naruto) and whether some types of narratives are better suited to a longer run.
I know some series are expanded so that the producers can make more money off of it, leading to filler episodes and why there are extra movies, OVAs, and side stories for anime/manga. A great example of this is Dragon Ball, which will never end at this point. Some manga, like Bleach, have little narrative per a page so it takes a long time for the story to move forward and the corresponding anime needs fillers in order to not get ahead of the manga. – LaRose9 years ago
I'd say that this is an article that mostly relates to shounen. Long-running seinen such as Vagabond and Berserk are highly regarded and make good use of their length to provide different arcs and give the story an epic feel. With shounen, I feel that it's more about making the manga last as long as possible than a good story, due to the way shounen magazines operate. – BoomBap9 years ago
