Is OEL Manga Really Manga? – This Week in Anime

Viz debuted its new Originals One-Shots comic program, making way for the age-old discussion of whether manga is a “style” or based on country of origin.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network.
Spoiler Warning for discussion of the series ahead.

My Hero Academia, Yokai Buster Murakami, The Stranger, Hunter X Hunter, Ancient Melody, Cinematic Certitude, Skin & Bone, and One Piece are available from Viz Media. The Sherlock manga and Peepo Choo are available from Penguin Random House, and Sun Princess is available on MANGA Plus.

Go-Go Mystery Machine (upcoming) and My Adventures with Superman are currently streaming on HBO Max, while Scott Pilgrim Takes Off is available on Netflix. Tower of God and Solo Leveling are currently streaming on Webtoons.

Lucas

I’m so glad we’re finally getting to the bottom of this together, Chris. To start with the basics, Merriam-Webster gives two tautological definitions for the art form. The first is “Japanese comic books and graphic novels considered collectively as a genre.” The second is “an individual comic book or graphic novel of the manga genre.”

Yeah, the idea of “Original English Language” (or “OEL“) manga has been a concept for a good while now. Publishers like Antarctic Press notably released manga-stylized comics in the late 1980s.

Scooby-Doo is going to Japan, gang! We’ve reached peak “distinction without a difference” re: anime/western animation and manga/comics!

I will note that that’s the only mention I will make of AP, Ninja High School, or its author, lest this column derails into some wild rabbit holes that will have us here all night. Instead, Viz’s new push for Originals reminds me of Tokyopop‘s Rising Stars of Manga initiative and the English-language originals they published.

They published a “manga” by Courtney Love! You don’t get much more “of the era” than that!

These influences, bleeding into well-known Western pop culture, are a neat side-effect of generations raised on anime and manga and the continued popularity of the mediums. It’s also emblematic of how these trends will always get smushed together based on whatever executives think will work for a marketing push. Courtney Love yesterday, manga based on BBC‘s Sherlock today.

Predatory contracts aside, much of Tokyopop‘s Rising Stars of Manga and resultant releases weren’t quite so cynical. It was a platform similar to what Viz seems to be doing, where writers and artists inspired by manga could get their work published and perhaps grow their profile and career in the industry.




The results cast a pretty wide net. You’d have Jared Hodges and Lindsay Cibos telling a very manga-looking story about a cute pet, compared to something like Felipe Smith debuting an intense personal screed that questioned what submissions to a manga-styled talent contest ought to even look like.

VIZ’s One-Shots initiative coming out so long after stuff like Rising Stars means it arguably misses any question of controversy. It didn’t seem like that big a deal back in the day. I recall some hand-wringing over the “OEL Manga” label, but there was a general acceptance that what you called them didn’t matter as much as the comics being good. You had stuff like Scott Pilgrim seeming to be treated as “honorary manga” by the crowd, and that one just got turned into one of the best anime of last year, so maybe that was appropriate.

Ah! You beat me to referencing Scott Pilgrim! But you’re right, Scott Pilgrim wore its manga influences on its sleeve without ever being reduced to a homage to that medium, and its distinct voice and tone are a big part of why it’s endured in the public conciseness.



Also, to argue for this closing Venn diagram from the opposite side, one of the biggest anime and manga in production today is equal parts Teen Titans and Harry Potter. If My Hero Academia is the byproduct of an increasingly globalized entertainment landscape, it only makes sense that Western media that draws upon East Asian media for inspiration would become increasingly common, too.

Sometimes it’s not even mere inspiration, it’s direct adaptation! Comic artist Adam Warren famously put out his take on Dirty Pair. Meanwhile, French artist Jérôme Alquié did a version of Captain Harlock supervised by Leiji Matsumoto himself.




My often-contradictory particularities mean I think of these more as “comics” than “OEL manga,” which is funny when you consider they’re technically cut from 100% Japanese IP source material.

The amount of global crossover can make these sorts of lines blurry. I mentioned Felipe Smith, who had several releases through The House That Disco Stu Built under the OEL Manga label. But then he moved to Japan, where he had his series Peepo Choo published in Japanese by Kodansha, meaning there was no “OEL“; this was just…manga.



On the other hand, you’ve got Gurihiru, an illustrating team from Japan who primarily works for Western comic publishers like Marvel. I love their work on Power Pack, but I’d be hard-pressed to call that one “manga.” But their forthcoming Unico: Awakening is based on a classic Japanese IP and is actively being promoted as a “manga” by its publisher, Scholastic.

Slight tangent, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t note that the Peepo Choo cover kicks SO MUCH ass!

Smith is a master of an artist; no wonder he broke into the manga scene on both sides of the Pacific and did his own work for Marvel. He created Robbie Reyes, the All-New Ghost Rider! For that, he has my undying respect.

I also think it’s worth noting that something considered “manga” isn’t necessarily a quality marker. I know a lot of international artists are chasing that dragon, but there have been previous TWIAs that dug into how bigger institutions in the manga industry look shakier than ever.

Haha, even if it’s a deliberate deconstruction of the mico-genre, the brand new Yokai Buster Murakami series is now the umpteenth series to appear in the publication that can be boiled down to “High Schoolers vs Japanese Folklore.” All I’m saying is that maybe people should focus more on telling the story they want to tell and less on being a part of a medium that feels more derivative than ever at its top level.

Me being me, I was mostly here picking up on its multiple Kamen Rider parallels, both to general themes of the franchise and specific entry setups like Kabuto.



This gets back to that idea of influence we’ve been touching on, as various other Japanese franchises will naturally lend inspiration to anyone sending in submissions to the publisher of Naruto.

You would think and hope, but I’m not so sure. Many popular webcomics are more or less the author’s take on popular manga and light novels. Tower of God is pretty clearly riffing on Hunter X Hunter and Solo Leveling is overtly inspired by Sword Art Online. These aren’t meant to be digs at either IP, but I’m just pointing out that a series can get pretty popular by playing into what worked for another trending franchise.



People won’t look back to older works for inspiration unless it ties into what they’re trying to create. I hope people do, as works that draw from older series are far more appealing to me personally than yet another manga series that tries and fails to capture what made YuYu Hakusho or Dragon Ball so special.

Along those lines, I’ll mention that one thing that stuck out to me about the four One-Shots available from Viz so far was that all of them are fantastical action stories of some stripe. They are all different from each other, to be sure, with Ancient Melody having a bit more of a fantasy adventure bent to it compared to the combat focus of the others.



But thus far, we aren’t seeing as much of a spread between drama, slice-of-life, and allegories for kids in comas the way we got from Rising Stars of Manga back in the day. That could be a numbers game at this point, and future Originals One-Shots entries might diversify.

I loved that element of Ancient Melody too! I like One Piece as much as the next guy, but its growing popularity feels like it’s having a flattening effect on fantasy-adventure stories in the manga medium. This take on that genre felt like a breath of fresh air, and I also hope other one-shots in this program can play into those less common genres.

The more experimental quality of these entries is one reason I gravitated towards Rising Stars of Manga back in the day. I also hope Viz’s selections can embody that. With that in mind, I was most taken with Naf’s Cinematic Certitude and its portrayal of some unique causality-based combat alongside fundamentally strong sci-fi action art.



All of these stories can potentially be expanded into full series, but I am most curious about this one and its long-term potential.

Interesting! Cinematic Certitude is the one that resonated with me the least, haha! It had some fairly enticing worldbuilding and incredibly detailed and sleek artwork, but the character writing and pacing were a bit boilerplate for me. I’d be much more interested in reading Naf’s subsequent, hopefully longer work rather than a continuation of this one-shot.

Our different reactions highlight why increasing the number of entries and their variety can only benefit these one-shots! Different stories will ring differently for different readers—that speaks to the value of bringing in new creators with fresh backgrounds and perspectives under a program like this. Granted, there’s an arguable point that new creators don’t need something like this model to get their work out there. The internet has democratized the publishing of comics for decades now, allowing for the independent release of unique stories. But getting to stand on the shoulders of Shonen Jump certainly can’t hurt your visibility.

Absolutely! The webcomic creators I’ve talked to have been pretty candid about this program not being the best fit for them, so long as making a webcomic is a passion project or side hustle. But for people more focused on working in any section of the global comics industry, having a Shonen Jump published project in your portfolio definitely can’t hurt!

It seems some of them have already been involved in this. Josh Tierney, the author of Skin & Bone, had previously worked on World Piece, also published by Viz, which the editors noted was a factor in selecting his new work for the program.



They talk about how simple visibility is a major point of the Originals One-Shots program, specifically angling to help creators forge industry connections that could boost later works the way some Rising Stars entrants were able to do.

I’ll be curious to see where it goes regarding what other entries from other creators it picks up. I worry a bit that its eventual crowding might hurt that discoverability, but that’s a concern for the future and the people running this thing. Either way, I hope these cool comics’ creators are treated better than the talent that worked under Tokyopop. I also hope no one gives them too much guff over properly being “manga” or not. Apart from all our efforts here to define it, I think Felipe Smith put it best:

Topping Tokyopop is a low bar to clear. Still, with the names attached and the quality of the work we’ve seen already, I think we’re right to be cautiously optimistic about the future of the Viz Originals One-Shot program and its potential to bring about healthy and long-lasting change in the manga/comics medium.