4-Koma manga Master list & Discussion

[touma]

Originally Posted by Damius

The kijakusai's Piece of News

The ">" button beside kijakusai's name is a broken link. I am guessing that this was originally posted in the Fandom Post forums, but the software here is trying to find it in the Mania forums.
I do not think that there is any easy fix for that because it is not a complete URL but just a post number.
To avoid confusion you could just delete that number when you paste the text here.

And thank you for taking the time to post it here.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by touma

To avoid confusion you could just delete that number when you paste the text here.

Yeah, I forgot to delete it this time. Thanks for letting me know.

Originally Posted by touma

And thank you for taking the time to post it here.

No problem.

[kijakusai]

Originally Posted by Damius

The kijakusai's Piece of News

乙です。 Thank you for taking trouble to post it on AoD.
　

[Damius]

The kijakusai's Piece of News

Originally Posted by kijakusai

According to postings on 2ch's Miyahara Ruri thread, it seems that Love Lab, a 4-koma manga by Miyahara Ruri, will be made into an anime.

http://c0014574.r32.cf1.rackcdn.com/x2_fab5a85
　

Originally Posted by kijakusai

The anime company, which seems to be Aniplex, has opened the Love Lab anime web site on November 21.
http://www.love-lab.tv/

You can read some pages from the Love Lab manga on the Love Lab anime site.
http://www.love-lab.tv/book/index.html

Miyahara Ruri has drawn non-fiction manga about the Love Lab anime.
http://www.love-lab.tv/essei/index.html

The Love Lab anime on Twitter.
http://twitter.com/LOVE_LAB_anime/

They have displayed Love Lab posters at the publishing house.
http://twitter.com/LOVE_LAB_anime/st...557696/photo/1
http://twitter.com/mangatime_sp/stat...857536/photo/1
　

[touma]

Originally Posted by Damius

The kijakusai's Piece of News

It does look interesting.
Looking at it makes me think of K-On!. Part of the reason is just the layout of course, but the character designs also seem similar to me.
There is also the way that most panels are static drawings which are mostly filled with the faces of the characters, but I guess that is common, and probably necessary, in the 4-koma format.
Edit: I probably thought of K-On!, rather than some other 4-koma, because I have read it so often that I have lost count, and am actually in the middle of volume 4 right now.

Without reading any of the text, I need to look for a way to do that, I think that this is probably worthy of being on the wish list.

[Damius]

Originally Posted by touma

Without reading any of the text, I need to look for a way to do that, I think that this is probably worthy of being on the wish list.

Added to the wish list.

[kijakusai]

Originally Posted by touma

It does look interesting.
Looking at it makes me think of K-On!. Part of the reason is just the layout of course, but the character designs also seem similar to me.

The 'feel' of Love Lab is near to that of 'old school' 4-koma, and in fact it has been carried in old school 4-koma magazines. However, since the main characters of Love Lab are cute girls, it is possible that also fans of moé 4-koma come to have an affinity for Love Lab.
(And recently some old school 4-koma magazines also carry some (semi-)moé 4-koma manga. It suggests that moé 4-koma have become powerful in the world of 4-koma manga.)

Originally Posted by touma

I probably thought of K-On!, rather than some other 4-koma, because I have read it so often that I have lost count, and am actually in the middle of volume 4 right now.

Have you again seen the scene where Tsumugi tried to frighten Azusa? ^_^
　

[touma]

Originally Posted by kijakusai

It suggests that moé 4-koma have become powerful in the world of 4-koma manga.

It seems that most of what gets licensed in Nort America would be considered moe. Is it getting to be a large percentage of the 4-koma in Japan, or is it just popular here?

Have you again seen the scene where Tsumugi tried to frighten Azusa? ^_^
　

Yes, I just read that again. In some ways Tsumugi is more of an airhead than Yui is. And poor Azusa has become the straight man for almost everybody.
I really enjoy the interaction between those two, not just here but in other places too.

[kijakusai]

Originally Posted by touma

It seems that most of what gets licensed in Nort America would be considered moe. Is it getting to be a large percentage of the 4-koma in Japan, or is it just popular here?

I have glanced through a list of 4-koma tankōbon which were published by Hōbunsha in November.
Time-kei (Old School) are 6 titles, whilst Kirara-kei (Moé) are 9 titles. Moreover, maybe the 6 Time-kei titles in November include a few moé-4-koma-in-fact titles.
So moé 4-koma probably surpass old school 4-koma in the number of tankōbon titles, at least in the case of Hōbunsha.
It doesn't necessarily mean the extinction of old school 4-koma, though.

There is a theory that one of the beginnings of moé 4-koma manga is some editors' having tried to bring 4-koma to younger otacky readers of manga. Moé 4-koma are aimed at the otacky younger portion of people who read manga.
The publication of manga in North America was developed in the 80s and 90s (i.e. after Otaku Culture had been developed well in Japan), and it was done under the inspiration of/in conjunction with the spread of anime in North America.
So probably the publication/reading of manga in North America tend to be otacky, then, also in the field of 4-koma manga, North American publishers tend to get licences to release moé 4-koma manga.

Yonezawa Yoshihiro, who was president of the Comic Market Preparatory Committee, wrote that Azumanga Daioh was located halfway between manga for 'ordinary' people and otacky manga.

Originally Posted by touma

Yes, I just read that again. In some ways Tsumugi is more of an airhead than Yui is. And poor Azusa has become the straight man for almost everybody.

One of the stereotypes of Japanese well-bred girls is ottori (gentle).
Sometimes a girl who is ottori may seem like being missing a few screws.
Hitsugi Amachi said that it was difficult to translate the Japanese upper-class girls' sociolect into English. So the English translation of the K-ON! manga may not reflect Tsumugi's soft-spoken way of speaking in the original Japanese edition.
When you read words spoken by Tsumugi in the English translation of the K-ON! manga, it may be not a bad idea to listen to a tender Boston Brahmin girl or a gentle upper-class English girl speaking with your mind's ears.

Speaking of dialects, I think that Mr Jack Wiedrick, a translator for Yen Press, translated the Kyōto dialect in the K-ON! manga into a 'super-urbanized New York dialect' and people talked about that matter here.
Actually the Kyōto dialect is usually perceived as softer than standard Japanese.
Tanizaki Jun'ichirō wrote:

京女の言葉づかひが優しいことは昔から知られてゐる

So Mr Wiedrick has not even read that famous essay by Tanizaki Jun'ichirō?
　

[Damius]

Thanks kijakusai for sharing once again really interesting information.