Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua: What’s the difference?
OK! The reason why I am writing about this is to explain the differences between Japanese Manga, Korean Manhwa, and Chinese Manhua. I have seen that some people put all kinds of Asian comics in the manga category, although there are differences between manga, manhwa, manhua and they are easily noticeable.
What is Manga?
For those who are new in the anime industry. Manga, simply are the comics produced in Japan, the name ‘Manga’ appeared in the late nineteenth century, although the comics culture is much older, here I am talking about the name or the term as a Label, you can check the Wikipedia, for details.
There are a lot of criteria that make a comic labeled as Manga, as I said, first it must be produced in Japan or by Japanese (not really a requirement), and also some drawing techniques must be respected. If you are not a manga artist (so do I for this moment), you can notice that manga artists follow a specific method of drawing, which mainly depends on the use of all spaces or panels, I am not talking about drawing characters, but about the way they exploit spaces. What also defines manga the fact it’s not colored.
Doujinshi
They are independent stories of anime or well-known manga, the events of these stories orbit according to the author’s desire, most of Doujins are drawn by amateurs, or by the manga author (mangaka) himself/herself, but they are only available on the Internet.
Reading direction
Manga: We read from right to left.
What is Manhua, and Manhwa?
Manhwa is the label of comics issued in Korea (South Korea) written in the Korean language, and these stories are dominated by the Korean culture, whether in the way of storytelling, or the way of life of the heroes, their names, foods, customs, and places in which they live, these stories are a reflection of the Korean culture.
Manhua stands for comics produced in China, and there are those who say that the term Manhua is the parent term for both Manga and Manhwa.
The Manhwa (so for the Manhua) has a distinctive way of drawing and exploiting areas, the manhwa artist takes more freedom in drawing, so you will find that there are large areas dedicated to drawing one snapshot only, unlike manga, where you can see a lot of shots on the same page.
Another feature is the colors, manhwa, and manhwa are colored unlike manga, Korean manhwa has a promising future. Of course, it’s not widely spread because it just appeared recently and does not have many distributors in the world unlike manga, yet it is making its way towards the world.
Manhwa, Manhua Stories
In Manhwa and Manhua magazines, the stories focus on the high school community and often focus on gangs, criminals, a boyish girl, or a girl disguised as a boy, in addition to the love triangle. Unlike the Manga, Manhwa stories don’t contain special chapters.
Webtoons and Manhwa
WebToon is one of the branches of Manhwa, it is drawn by amateurs on the computer, and sometimes it is manually drawn, and published on websites, not through regular paper magazines, all webtoon comic pages are colored.
Manhwa: we read from left to right, and sometimes you can read vertically from top to bottom.
In the end
I hope this article be helpful to you, if you have any other information, do not deprive hesitate to post it in the comment or contact us to publish it. Thank you.
Originally published at https://allanimangas.blogspot.com on January 17, 2021.
