The Interesting Difference Between A Mangaka And A Gensakusha

If you’re familiar with the manga industry, you’ve probably come across the term “Mangaka” plenty of times. However, it’s quite possible that you may have missed the term “Gensakusha” which is also worth knowing. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the difference between a mangaka and a gensakusha and why you should know the difference.

First, let’s define each role. A mangaka, the term people are more likely to be familiar with, is written 漫画家 in Japanese with 漫画 referring to manga while one of the many definitions of 家 refers to specialist. The role of the mangaka is to primarily draw the artwork of the manga itself. On the other hand, a gensakusha is written 原作者 in Japanese with the characters meaning original, create and person respectively. The role of the gensakusha is to write and compose the story, characters and dialogue of the manga. It’s also worth noting that the gensakusha provides a basic, often crudely drawn, storyboard to act as a guide for the mangaka.

Many, I would argue most, mangaka also serve in the role of gensakusha with notable examples including Rumiko Takahashi, Eiichiro Oda, Takao Saito etc. However, there are also plenty of notable examples where two people, the gensakusha and the mangaka, pair up to create a series. The example I always think of is Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima who worked together as gensakusha and mangaka respectively to create series such as Lone Wolf & Cub, Samurai Executioner and Path of the Assassin amongst others.

Of course, it isn’t a case that a mangaka can’t serve as gensakusha on some series and just as the artist on others. A pretty famous example of this is Osamu Tezuka who wrote and drew the vast majority of his series himself but one of his most notable early works, New Treasure Island, was written by Shichima Sakai while Osamu Tezuka himself did the artwork. This fact is why Osamu Tezuka would refer to a later work of his, “The Mysterious Underground Men“, as being his first story manga since he served as both gensakusha and mangaka.

To be completely honest, I wasn’t too familiar with the term “Gensakusha” until relatively recently and I think it’s a helpful distinction to make when discussing the roles of the writer and artist when it comes to creating manga. Let me know your thoughts on the interesting difference between a mangaka and a gensakusha, what other interesting examples of gensakusha you know of, whether you were already familiar with the term gensakusha and how 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!