I always find it interesting how unfamiliar many Western manga fans are with the way manga is distributed in Japan. I have no doubt that if you were to ask your typical manga fan about manga magazines, you will find them confused, perhaps only able to name one or two with no idea of the economics behind them. That is understandable, why should a Western manga fan have to be familiar with manga magazines and distribution when it seemingly has nothing to do with them? However, I think that fans of any medium should learn about the way their media is distributed.

Manga magazines are different to other media that feature manga such as newspapers, specialty magazines etc in that their primary focus is on manga. These magazines often use low quality newsprint and can be anywhere from about 200 pages to over a 1000! These magazines will often have a common theme such as demographics including Shonen, Shojo, Seinen etc or topics such as golf, cooking, 4-koma and will feature stories from a variety of mangaka who are allotted a number of pages in the magazine for their chapter.

When thinking about what makes manga distinct from other mediums, I’m sure many of you think about Japanese culture, the fact that it’s read right to left, how it’s black and white etc. For me though, one of the most distinctive aspects of manga is something that I rarely see discussed. Manga paneling is an underappreciated facet that makes manga stand out so much and I think it’s important that more people know about it.

Let’s start off with a very basic question, what is a panel? Panels are used in all forms of graphic novels, whether that be manga, manhwa, western graphic novels etc and act as a frozen moment in time. By stringing these panels together and reading them in order, you can create an ongoing story. That is paneling at its most basic, but, just as cinematography is about more than pointing a camera at something, paneling also has many layers to it.