As someone who is a fan of both anime and manga, it’s easy to forget that there are numerous aspects to them that can be confusing to people unfamiliar with them. One particularly interesting aspect that is terribly easy to forget is the visual language of anime and manga itself, referred to as “Manpu”. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the topic, a possible reason for its development and a few examples of manpu.
The word manpu is written in Japanese as 漫符 which can be translated as “Manga Symbols”. As for why they developed in the first place, the only definitive reason that I’ve come across was when I was reading “The Osamu Tezuka Story” and, while Osamu Tezuka was developing the first Astro Boy TV series, he incorporated many techniques in an effort to keep costs down. One of these techniques, of which there were many, was to simplify animating character emotions by adding a visual sign rather than trying to animate the face. Of course, manpu may very well predate this but this is the earliest example that I’m aware of.
While seemingly developed in order to reduce the cost of animation, feel free to correct me if you have an earlier example, this has had the added bonus of proving to be very effective in manga since they are made up of still images. To give some examples, one of the more common manpu that you may have seen is the symbol for anger. Made up of four curves which face each other, this symbol is apparently meant to represent the veins bulging from one’s head which certainly explains why it pulses. Similarly, another particularly common one is reddening the face while applying several diagonal lines, typically pink or red in anime, to the character’s cheeks in order to portray shyness.
However, I think some of the more notable ones are more abstract and might be harder for new fans of anime and manga to understand. A great example of this is a visual symbol for when a character is laughing in which the character is surrounded by curved lines that have strikes through them. Similarly, another potentially confusing manpu is when the character has what looks like a scribbled ball next to their head. This means that the character is confused and is unable to straighten their thoughts out. Another favourite of mine I believe I experienced for the first time when I was reading Fullmetal Alchemist and one of the characters, I believe it may have been Alphonse, seemingly had their spirit coming out of their mouth. It took me a while to figure it out on my own but it simply means that the character is oblivious to the world due to exhaustion, despair etc.
Of course, I’ve mostly been covering emotions and I want to briefly touch on other aspects of manpu. The hair colour of a character carries a lot of meaning with regards to their personality and, while I’ve found the information surrounding this to be too inconsistent to go into detail, I wanted to mention it regardless. Similarly, other visual cues in anime and manga include that tsundere characters will often have a single tooth, sometimes referred to as a fang, visible as they talk or that eyes that are more narrow tend to mean that the characters have a more cold personality.
Manpu is a fascinating aspect of anime and manga and I believe it’s very fitting to call it a visual language as it can take a while for people to understand the intricacies and meaning behind them. Let me know your thoughts on manpu, when you first noticed that anime and manga were using specific imagery to communicate with the audience, some other manpu that you’ve come across and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Hopefully you have found this article interesting and informative and, if you wish to seek any of the works I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs!