Manga & Anime

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So, our youngest child has been quite taken in by the look of manga and anime. But neither my spouse nor I know anything about either. Can anyone suggest websites that would make for good primers, either for our child or for us so we can find appropriate sites for him to learn from, please? And any other info you can provide? I'm guessing this may well turn out to be his first new special interest in a long time.

A site I use: http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/pages/tutorials

I've used this site (above) too. I think it's really helpful and fine for kids as far as I've seen.

Just a word of caution - with Manga / Amine I think it's important to check things out before letting a child look at it. There are areas of the amine /manga world which are very much adult only (not somthing I am interested in at all but I have run across it when looking for more regular anime stuff.) I kind of assumed at first that because it was all 'cartoons' it would all be child friendly but some of it has more adult themes and some of it is definitely not for kids. That said there is a huge amount of super child-appropriate manga and anime out there - you just need to check it out first.

I hope this helps.

Thanks for the warning, a bit of googling and I see what you mean. We're pretty sex/sexuality/gender positive in our household and treat it as a part of nature, but at a level appropriate for each child's age and experience. I think my biggest problem with M&A is that it goes against my nature as it seems to promote a certain objectification of women. But that's again where parental guidance comes in.

Thanks for the how-to website! It's *really* interesting. [see update below, please ]

What I'm looking for more I guess is some sort of site that my child can go to and learn the basics of the most popular stories/storylines, characters & the like. From my (somewhat older and admittedly out of touch) point of view, there are a bazzillion characters mentioned everywhere yet little to guide a newb toward a good starting point. Our child is likely on the spectrum too (not tested yet, but little doubt) and having something like this would give him something to be enthused about - the other kids into it at school seem spectrum-like/-lite, but at their age seem just as lost as to how to learn more about the current/popular characters and stories.

Any advice would be appreciated...where can I go to find the "big names" in the art form? Who is most popular / which of their storylines or characters are well known? ...that sort of thing.

Update:
OH! I AM SUCH A...Well, anyway...I completely missed that there's an entire site about Manga at that link!! ! I thought it was just about how to draw it!! !

THANK YOU!! !!

I'll just second the bit about checking it out yourself before letting your kid have whatever it is.

There's more than a few series out there that are... oddly deceptive in what they appear to be. The cover will appear all cutesy, the story description on the back of the book or whatever wont give much away, and you get partway through the first volume, aaaaaaand.... suddenly, some things just are not what they seem. And might get really bad really fast.

For example, there's a series called Madoka Magica (I dont recall if that's the ENTIRE name, or just part of it), and it seems like a fairly cute, "magical girl" anime for awhile... until you hit about, uh, episode 3, I think. I could be remembering that number wrong. Then it all just... goes downhill really fast. Without spoiling it, I'll just say that it's listed as "dark fantasy" and "horror" in Wikipedia's description. But you dont find this out until THREE episodes in.

And then there's a major trend in anime/manga lately, which is what I call "fanservice overload". AKA, naked or nearly naked females appearing FREQUENTLY. Usually censored (barely) in some way, but not always. Frankly I find the trend more than a little annoying. I get that sex sells, but... honestly, I miss alot of older anime/manga, which didnt NEED to do this sort of thing. But it's just one other thing to watch out for.

If you're looking at older series though, that trend appears much less frequently (with certain exceptions). That's not to say that all new ones have it, but plenty do.

with anime and manga, there are different categories. for children it's generally Shonen, which is pretty much a boys audience category which is usually about 8-10 years old with things like pirates and ninjas and what not (Naruto, One Piece) and Pokemon. Shoujou, a girls audience category 8-10 years old sometimes includes cute series's with things like magical girls, princesses, and witches...etc.(Sailor Moon, PowerPuff Girls...etc.)

I suggest both Yotsuba and Cardcaptor Sakura.