Hello guys, I'm blackjellyfish13 and I'm here today to present to my fellow Steemians a topic that people might find interesting(I hope they do). It's about the ways of how animation TV series and animation movies are born. To be specific, today, I'll be tackling more about animes and put the western cartoons part in another post, cause animes have a really different ecology if compared to western cartoons(specially in TV series). For the sake of the reader that who might not know, technically, a cartoon is called an anime if the production of the said content is from Japan. Alas, it can be also called Japanese cartoons.
To tell more a little about cartoons, some people still think that cartoons are children material or contents that is only directed to child audiences. If you still think so, you are wrong.
With the success of the adult cartoons such as The Simpsons, Futurama, Bob's Burgers and recently, Rick and Morty, there is no doubt that there is a good demand for such animated contents.
But even so, with the amount of people that patronises cartoons--have you ever wondered what things does their creators face whenever they do a series?
People like Eiichiro Oda(One Piece), Rebecca Sugar(Steven Universe) and other cartoon content creators had this road they had chosed and worked to.
The drafts, mainstream stuff and big screen stuff
First, you should always consider that not all animes have the same level, ecosystem and origins. If you do think that their all the same specially in TV shows, then you are looking at it in a different way. It's kinda broader than you think.
To helpyou visualize, I'll put the three most common types that makes up the anime industry as it is.
1 Movies
Have you seen Makoto Shinkai's movie titled Your name(kimi no na wa) recently? That movie is Shinkai sensei's best work up to date.
Makoto Shinkai is a really promising producer. In such age(44), he already had pushed his self into something ground breaking like Your name.
He started with making short animated commercials to full length movies. His journey with doing animated contents was a long one and we will be expecting more from this guy for the next upcoming years.
Right before Shinkai sensei, there was another guy who has been known for his phenomenal and innovative animations. His name is Hayao Miyazaki and he is the co-founder of the animations studio named Studio Ghibli.
I don't think that there are individuals here in Steemit that doesn't know any of his works like My Neighbor Tororo, Princess Mononoke, Howl's Moving Castle and spirited away. All of those movies are so good that it led new animation styles and techniques to be born and adapted for the next upcoming years by other producers. Hayao Miyazaki is indeed an important person in the indutry of Anime.
So how does it work?
Animation movies or like other animation movies are pitched to investors for funds.
So basically, it's the same scene like those in movies, where there is a presentation of a product, service or a company and rich people who has money to give for the project. They pitch the project into investors before actually outsourcing the talents they need for the project.
Not every movie goes this way like Hayao Miyazaki and Makoto Shinkai(cause these two are popular and rich enough to not even need to do presentations) but most of them do.
2 Light Novel
Light Novels? Is this the first time encountering the term? If so, give a guess of what light novels are?
Light novels aren't those books like Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings that are chopped per chapter and is been sold in retail. They are not even connected to books that are made up of texts about a story.
Light novel is a term in Japanese which they call to Japanese comic books that is self produced. Yes, not litteraly a novel, it's a comic book that is produced by a group or an individual without any third parties like a magazine or publishing company.
This is really a crucial term in the industry cause most people doesn't really know what a manga and a light novel is in details, most people only know that there is only manga in Japanese comics.
There are groups like Clamp(chobits, card captor sakura) that has started as a small group and ended up having their own studio after their numerous success. Some of their members had worked in some magazine companies but this team is also know for their self produced works.
Light novels has a chance of being adapted to an animation series but not as high as of in mangas. And usually they just last a season of twelve episodes or two.
To tell more about light novels, distinguishing them from mangas are really easy if you read a lot of Japanese comic books.
Here are sample pages to compare. It's really easy to see, most mangas have more actions than texts unlike light novels. The flow of the story is really quite different and most of the time, mangas have 20 pages per chapter
To compare the two comics more, check them out in mangareader.net. The first page is from Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball: Chapter 1 and the other one is from Ito Noizi and Yashichiro's Shakugan no shana: Chapter 1
Here are some more titles that are light novels that has been adapted to animation series:
• Melancholy of haruhi Suzumiya
• Sword Art Online
• No Game No Life
• Magic Index
• My sister is not that cute
3 Manga
Now were talking, mangas are the pieces of work that makes up almost the whole anime industry. Manga is something that can be associated with the word mainstream.
Unlike movies and light novels, artists that works with making mangas are quite messier and harder.
Only 0.001% of mangakas really makes a living out of doing comics and most of them just quit.
To categorize a comic if it's manga, just always look for the series title if it did ran or is still ongoing in a certain magazine company. If it does, then it's a manga no matter what.
Manga: It's a Painful and Tedious Route, is it Worth it?
A manga or a series can be made by up to two authors(one who writes and one who draws) but most of the time it's only an individual.
Each week, a chapter is released in a magazine company (like Weekly Shonen Jump) along with other manga titles.
In that magazine, those mangakas will compete for popularity, if their popularity drops way beyond the top 15 then their manga will be axed after several chapters.
Mangakas are supplied with editors from the company their working for. These editors take care of the mangakas by supplying them references and making strategies with them for their weekly series.
Mangakas can choose to hire assistants to do the erasing, the filling up of the black spaces, the manga tones, the backgrounds(if you are lucky enough to find a good assistant) and buying food and other supplies.
In American comics the job of writing, penciling, inking coloring and other stuff is done per person. Which is also a reason why the western comic indsutry isn't as lively compared to Japan's/
There is a good thing about this assistant artists relationships. These relationships keeps the industry alive, since having an assistant is also like mentoring them. Some of these assistants end up having their own series after they grew better with their craft.
A good sample of an assistant that ended up having his own series is Eiichiro Oda which was the assistant of Nobuhiro Watsuki(Samurai X/ Rorouni Kenshin)
The page above is a page where Eiichiro Oda drew a bomb for Nobuhiro sensei's manga page, the logo that Eiichiro Oda is using right now in his manga(One Piece) has been actually used even way before he was just an assistant.
The salary? Well, there are no exact salary for each mangaka. Their pages tend to be paid for 20 to 80 dollars each. They have 15% royalties for the books that will be sold(tankoubon) and if that manga has an anime adapatation, the artist/s are paid 10,000$ per episode. So, this job, if done properly, can give you lots of fortune.
So how do I become a mangaka? And how would my manga be animated?
There are tons of magazine companies out there with different genres. Some companies only makes boy comics like Weekly Shonen, Jump square.
Others do comics that are targeted to girls and others are comic magazines for older audiences. There are even companies that makes porn contents like Comic LO and Comic Karaikuten(there are no translated versions of these magazines online but if you want, I can translate them for you, if you donate me some crypto ;p)
So what do I do? Where do I start?
In every magazine company, they have these contests for amatures who wants to join them. I don't know every company's recruiting procedures but most of them go this way.
I'll give Weekly Shonen Jumps Contests cause this company is the most popular magazine company that does comics in Japan.
There, in WSJ, there are three contests that are named as Tezuka Award, Akatsuka award and Monthly New World(formerly called as monthly treasure).
These contests have good amount of prices along the chance of being noticed and serialized by the company.
Just win one of them or a Tezuka and one Monthly New world, I am sure, after half a year, you will be having your own series be published in the main magazine itself.
Just in case you want to know more about WSJ, they have this website where you can check everything about them and about their recruiting.http://www.shonenjump.com/e/
After you get serilized you will be ranked weekly for popularity, if your manga makes a good name for two years, there is a high chance that your manga will be scouted by animation companies like TOEI, Sunrise, Bones, Anima and others for an animated adaptation.
Hahaha, this was a long post, I hope people who reads it will find it entertaining and informative.
If you're interested in manga and the life of mangakas, there is an anime series that I do suggest to you.
The anime is named Bakuman, a show where the two main characters strives for their dream of becoming a mangaka. It's a good show to watch and is informative since it shows a lot of good detailed information of the things an aspiring mangaka confronts before actually becoming a professional mangaka. And yeah, the author of Death note and Bakuman are the same so, it's a really suggested watch.
Thank you for dropping by, please tell me of what you think about this post in the comments sections below. Any criticism is appreciated. Thank you.
all the pictures in this blog are borrowed from google, mangareader.net and nhentai.net , they are not mine, I just borrowed them