There's something that's always been bothering me for the past few years...

Why is it that most manga that come out now (2000- onwards) are just another manga that's been done before multiple times, except with a theme that's somewhat original?

If you don't get what I'm talking about, I'll make up an example:

"A genius, award-winning scientist who's love life is down the crapper decides to make himself a wife. Since he spent all the money he made from speeches, he doesn't have many materials. So he creates an android with what he has. Then all of a sudden, a woman dies outside his house and her soul goes into the android. When the android wakes up, the scientist thinks that he created life from an inanimate object."

And then after that (depending on the genre it would be), they would argue with each other throughout the ENTIRE manga (while developing feelings for each other, but being too goddamn stubborn and proud to admit it), fight against another scientist (who would be the main character's childhood sweetheart, and/or some rival that wants revenge for a mundane and pointless reason ), go to a hot springs resort, the beach, the woods, and a ski resort, have the scientist's family member come out of nowhere and have some vague reason as to why they're moving in, having a tournament for the top prize of scientists (cause you gotta have tournaments), work with some corporation that's secretly using the scientist's inventions to take over the world, etc. etc.

Now, I know that there are some manga that came out since 2000 that aren't like the manga I'm talking about (notice that at the beginning of the post I said MOST, not ALL manga), and I know that there were manga that were copying off of others before 2000 came, but it's like an ocean of epic fail just came and sunk almost all of the creativity that was left in the mangaka now. I guess to me (And I mean to ME, not to you, I don't know how you guys think about manga in general) it's VERY hard to find a manga that doesn't follow every single rule in it's genre, or use jokes that have been done an infinite amount of times

Basically, what I'm asking is why is it that these mangaka can think of somewhat original ideas (Something like what I have above), but then over the course of the manga, put so many cliches into it that you could say, "This is EXACTLY like a manga I've read before, only the male character's a masochist, and his love interest is his parrot that's actually a shape-shifting alien that can turn into anything on Earth, and that the main antagonist is another alien from a different planet and race that rivals the shape-shifting alien's race."

And please don't give an excuse like "Well, if you remember what their demographic is..." or "That's just how the genre is, so there's going to be manga that would be exactly like another manga". There are manga that don't even follow most the rules of its' genre and would still fit in it's demographic


________________

its just like everything thats gotten popular like music the more popular something is the more people will try to make a living out of it. the more people the more crap that comes out cause making manga requires talent and effort and a lot of people dont make the effort also mabye its because the period 2000-2008 is shorter then before-2000 that makes it look like there's less original manga. but if youre looking for creative mangas just keep looking cause even between the crap there are always a few masterpieces.
(srry if my english isn't all that good)

________________

There is much more manga out now then there was before, thsu there will be more crap stories. I suggest don't dwell on it, there are still some god stories out there.

odds are the older ones you remember were the ones that stuck out in their era(dbz, ranma 1/2, sailor moon) because the older copycat ones werent good enough to be as remembered.

it's always been that you have the find the good stuff mixed in with the bland, only with advances in printing tech and the internet more volume gets made, thus more bland to sort through

Agreed. Ten years later you'll forget a lot of crappy manga that released now.

Back in the stone age of manga,
when there was nothing, the mangaka could make something and
it was both new and original. Now that a lot of stuff has been
made, the chances that a new series would not be just a
rip-off of some other series is rather small.
There's still a lot of themes and plotlines out there, but
the chances that they will please the stuck audience
that just wants to read the same trash again and again
are rather small, so to ensure that the mangaka can make
some profit out of the manga, they'll have to do the same
stuff over again, just slightly, carefully altering things.
You could make a manga that revolves around the life
of a donut, you could. That however doesn't qualify as the
bestseller, since it does not attract a large enough audience.

It could also be that the mangaka are talentless.
There's a lot of poor artists in every field now that
art is equal to business.

I agree with Daed. It's like how lots of people seem to wish they'd been growing up in the 60s/70s with all the pop culture or music or cult tv shows that era is remembered for, without realising how much crap there was out there that has been conveniently forgotten, or how it was just as easy to miss the good stuff if you were alive then..

Plus every story rips off other ideas, even if it's without knowing it. From the example in the first post, the idea of someone making a wife for himself and it all going horribly wrong is in the Greek myths for a start.. (cant remember the blokes name though)

Also: you dont get to make a living through art by being talentless, especially considering how much competition there must be between people drawing manga in Japan.. I dont think the number of talented people in a generation changes from one year to the next, and I dont think that any of us on a forum has any right to judge the amount of determination it takes to get to that stage.

Last edited by centzon totochtin at 2:20 pm, Sep 22 2008

Personally, I don't think there are any more copycats now than there were ten-fifteen years ago, you just haven't read enough manga to realise that most of those stories you grew up reading were also copy cats of series that came before. Not everything can be an original. Mangaka now grew up reading the stories you are probably thinking of, and whether conscious of it or not, that does influence the way that you write. It's not just magna either, if you read, say, murder mysteries, once you read enough of them you will start to realise how similar most of them are.

I know you said you didn't want excuses like this, but I'm sorry it's how these things work. Manga and anime, like any other from of art/entertainment, goes through fads and periods. Remember the Magical Girl boom of the mid 80s-late 90s? Sailor Moon, Creamy Mami, Card Captor Sakura, Star Magical Emi, Wedding Peach, Idol Pastel Yumi, Fairy Persia, Pretty Sammy, Minky Momo, Sweet Angel Mint, and the list goes on. When something sells well it becomes a sort of standard, and while it may die down a little, like in the case of magical girl shows, anything that was once very popular will always be around to some degree, like with the new magical girl series coming out, Nanoha, Strike Witches, and the like. But over the years there are more and more trends that have become permanent part of manga and anime.

It may seem like there is less variety in manga now because you aren't reading the trend-following manga of ten or twenty years ago, you have read what was deemed good enough to translate into English, which is probably the trend defining manga. Now that there are so many publishers and so many scanlation groups, instead of having a meager selection of what to read, you get it all, and not everything is good.

You also have to keep in mind how old you were when you started reading manga. I was in elementary school when I began, and what I thought was amazing and original then looks like crappy writing to me now, be careful that nostalgia doesn't tint your opinions either.

________________

Sturgeon's Law holds true for manga as well.

"Ninety percent of everything is crap"