Creating Christian Manga – Audience and Themes

Table of contents for Christian Manga

1. Christian Manga – the Good, the Bad, and the Okay
2. Creating Christian Manga – Audience and Themes

Since my earlier post (Christian Manga – the Good, the Bad and the Okay) seems to have risen to a high rank on Google, I’ve been getting a number of responses and queries about Christian Manga from various people interested in creating Christian media of various sorts, and wanting to hear what I thought about it. Therefore, I’ve decided to post a series of follow-up posts, dealing specifically with my thoughts about the creation of Christian manga.

One of the important things to note about the Japanese manga industry is that it is very targeted. The market is very clearly segmented by audience, and every manga magazine specialises in publishing stories for a select group of people. The most common demographic segments in manga (at least in the stories that are popularised overseas) are the ones targeted at shounen (young boys), shoujo (young girls), seinen (young men) and josei (young women) audiences. Each of these manga demographics has certain conventions in theme and style – derived from the psychological needs / state of its’ audience, and historical developments in the field.

This post will deal with the topic of audience and themes – specifically, with the shounen and shoujo demographics.

Shounen Manga

Shounen manga caters to young boys, typically around the age ranges of 10-18 years old. Examples of well-known shounen manga include Naruto and One Piece (action/adventure), Detective Conan/Case Closed (mystery), Eyeshield 21 (sports), School Rumble (comedy) and I’’s (romance). One of the biggest trends in shounen manga is the ‘battle manga’ style of storytelling, most commonly identified with the manga magazine Shonen Jump. It centres around the direct and personal resolution of conflict through individual combat / battles of skill. These can be combat skills (Naruto, Bleach, Rurouni Kenshin), or it could be brainpower and deductive skills (Conan, Death Note), or other skills in different areas (football skills in Eyeshield 21, spiritual powers in Shaman King, cooking skills in Yakitate Japan, etc.).

For creators, it is helpful to think of the themes that appeal to this audience of young boys. Shounen battle manga tends towards themes of ambition, camaraderie, competition and power – becoming the best at something, with the help of friends. And each character in shounen manga is known by a few characteristic skills – the ninja techniques of Naruto and his friends, the specializations of the sports players in Eyeshield 21 or Slam Dunk. At this stage of development, many boys are starting to deal with their adolescence, and issues of identity. And for boys, identity is constructed and determined by one’s abilities in competition with others. A boy is known by how well he does something – his abilities and skills – and how he compares to others in the ladder rankings of power and status… whether determined by rough games in the neighbourhood playground, exam rankings in the classroom, trophies on the sports field, or in the fantasy land of the manga world.

To engage young boys, then, your manga needs to touch on some of these themes: ambition – wanting to become the best at something, camaderie – finding friends and comrades to help you on your way and fight next to you, competition – facing and overcoming challenges, and power – when and how to use your strength to fight for your ideals. Boys follow the strong – strong of arm and strong of heart. How can you show the strength and heroism of Christianity to young boys? How can you create Christian role models in your stories that are kakkoii (“cool”)?

For the most part, those themes deal with the majority of shounen manga. Shounen and seinen romance and comedy manga have some different challenges, which I’ll talk about in another post. But for creating shounen battle / competition manga, those are the essentials.

Shoujo Manga

Shoujo manga caters to young girls, roughly 10 – 18 years of age. Unlike shounen manga, shoujo manga tends to be more diverse in terms of subject area, conventions and storytelling style. The major genres of shoujo manga are the magical girl genre (exemplified by Sailor Moon), historical/fantasy adventure (Inuyasha, Fushigi Yuugi), romance (Ouran High School Host Club, Hana Yori Dango), everyday life drama (Fruits Basket, Baby and Me), and what I like to call the ‘ambition’ genre – which is usually about a girl who has one particular talent that she pours her whole heart into (usually creative arts or sports), and her developmental progress in that talent (Glass Mask, Skip Beat, Yumeiro Patisserie).

The three top themes to remember when creating shoujo manga are “relationships”, “dreams” and “drama”. Regardless of the setting, style or storytelling, all young teenage girls are interested in developing relationships between people (especially romantic ones), pursuit of their hearts’ desires, and how dramatic happenings in the plot impact their favourite characters. A large part of adolescence, for a teenage girl, is discovering the web of social relationships that underlie her world, and then figuring out or negotiating her own place in it. “Where do I belong?” and “How can I pursue my dreams, in spite of challenges?” are common questions that you need to deal with in the course of your story. There almost always is an internal conflict between the inner ‘true self’ of a girl, and the outward requirements of her societal position or situation. This is the basic engine that drives most girl-oriented storytelling across all mediums, from movies (Disney’s Mulan, High School Musical) to books (Anne of Green Gables, Sweet Valley High) to TV shows (Gossip Girl, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) to magazines and games.

When bringing themes of Christianity to young girls, again, the focus should be on relationships, drama and dreams. What is a relationship with Jesus Christ like, and how can she benefit from His influence in her life? How can Christianity help her overcome obstacles and challenges in life, especially in terms of finding/making her own place in the world? What kind of dreams does a Christian girl have, and why are they so important? Will Jesus / other Christians accept her for who she is, or place another burden of societal expectations and responsibilities that conflict with her identity? How will her relationships with other people grow, change or diminish with Christ?

Since I don’t belong to the demographic, I hesitate to say more. But one thing I’ve learned – a good cast of characters is essential. Since most of the story is driven by either internal conflict or societal relations, you need strong characters with clashing views. Preferably a strong male lead and a strong female lead in conflict (plus some unresolved romantic tension). And there are no perfect characters in manga. The good prince is a goofball or a gullible idiot. The dashing rogue has anger issues or a traumatic past hurt. The reliable friend is prone to jealousy or misunderstandings. Even the rival or enemy usually has a touch of goodness within him, to balance the overall evilness. It is the flaws in the character stereotypes that make interesting reading.