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MANGA IN GERMANY - FROM TRANSLATION TO SIMULACRUM

Heike Jüngst a
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 248

Manga in Germany – From Translation to Simulacrum

Heike Jüngst, University of Leipzig

juengst@rz.uni-leipzig.de

Abstract
This article does not focus on translation per se but on cultural exchange and intercultural
influences as precipitated and mediated by translation. Manga is a prime example for this kind
of exchange. With the translation of manga into German and the ensuing popularity, German
artists started producing manga of their own. Some of these manga were (and some still are)
an amalgam of elements of European comics and Japanese manga and tried to find new ways of
expression within the format. Others, however, have all the characteristics of a simulacrum: They
look like manga translated from Japanese into German. However, as with every simulacrum, there
is no original. In the case of these manga, there is no original Japanese version.

Key words: Pseudo-translation; manga; comic genres.

Translation, Canonization and Imitation

It is easy to demonstrate that translation is everywhere included in the sacred parts

of canons, but that due to our views on language and society and due to societies’
eclectic collective memory and to systematic strategies of insiders and outsiders, a
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large proportion of the translational data are or have become invisible. All known
cultures have made prestigious external texts part of their canon, most often in
translation. (Lambert 1995: 161)

Translators are generally more aware of this fact than are other members of
society. Publications that have a historical perspective on literary translation
and the canon are available (Mueller-Vollmer & Irmscher (eds.); Poltermann
(ed.) 1995). However, these publications tend to focus on texts with a high
status in their culture of origin and on the influence they have had, again, on
the high culture in the target community. In an essay in the Mueller-Vollmer
volume, Cyrus Hamlin speaks of “Transplanting German Idealism to American
Culture” (Hamlin 1998). The idea of transplanting appeals: The organ that is
transplanted will never lose its foreign origin, but it will, in the best case, become
a vital part of the organism into which it is transplanted. However, transplants
are normally replacements for vital organs that have lost their function. With
cultural transplants, we are rather faced with an additional organ that may or
may not take over from the original organ.
It is often left to specialists outside translation studies to deal with texts (no
matter in what medium) that are part of popular culture. These texts may be both
popular and high culture, but very often they will be considered low culture, as
for example detective stories, mainstream cinema and TV shows.
Manga falls into both categories. There are artistic manga of breathtaking
quality, but as with all kinds of cultural expression, these have a small
fan following only. Their influence on the target culture is an influence on
a subculture. Mainstream manga, however, have become a mainstream
phenomenon in Germany, too. Some of them are simply mass-produced eye
candy, but such texts can, and do, build canons and influence the target culture’s
cultural production.
0907-676X/06/04/248-12 $20.00 © 2006 Heike Jüngst
Perspectives: Studies in Translatology Vol. 14, No. 4, 2006
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 249

Certain “rules” of manga translation have developed over the years. It is

unacceptable to today’s manga reader in Germany to have the pages of the
translation flipped. Manga must be read back to front. Japanese honorifics are
normally left in their original shape, although printed in Latin letters, aka rōmaji,
so that the reader is confronted with frequent ‘-san’ and ‘-chan’ addresses. Often,
onomatopoeia is left in the Japanese katakana alphabet. This is not only cheaper
as it saves retouching the picture; it also has a strong aesthetic impact. As the
shapes of the letters help to decipher whether the onomatopoeia is meant to
represent a pleasant or an unpleasant sound, knowledge of katakana is not even
needed. Displays, i.e. shop signs, newspaper titles etc. that might appear in the
pictures only get retouched if their meaning is mandatory for an understanding
of the manga action. In short, whereas early manga translations used flipped
pages and sometimes even additional colour (e.g. the first Western editions
of Akira), translations today are visually as close as possible to the Japanese
originals (for a detailed account of manga translation in Germany see Jüngst
2004).
Manga have become part of the German canon of popular literature. The
interest in the Japanese language and culture sparked off by manga becomes
obvious if one reads the letters to the editors in German manga magazines
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such as Banzai!, MangaPower or Animania. They are peppered with Japanese

words. Konnichiwa or ohayō have become standard greetings. Manga readers
call themselves otaku, which approximately means ‘devoted fan’ and is a word
actually not free from negative connotations in Japan. In Germany, the word
has positive connotations for those who see themselves as otaku. It does not
really have connotations outside this group as people who are not interested
in manga will not know it. Using a Japanese term in order to refer to yourself
shows that you are a member of the in-group. It does not mean that you are a
lonely person lost in the artificial world of manga or anime, which is what the
Japanese associations are. Becoming a mangaka, a manga artist, has become a
job today’s German children dream of. Japan has partly replaced the USA as
a source for popular culture (an interesting reflection on this can be found in
Briese 2002). Exercise books available from the German paper company Herlitz
featured the manga-style heroes Reiko, Li and Professor Shikano on their covers
in autumn/winter 2002/03. The characters had been designed for this purpose
only.
The influence of manga in the world takes on two different shapes, and I am
concentrating on only one. Firstly, there is a development of “world comics”, as
Paul Gravett describes them in some detail (Gravett 2006: 152-171). These “world
comics” take the best and most interesting features of comics from all over the
world and combine them into new, often highly aesthetic and adventurous
art. Most world comics are not part of the mainstream comics. They do not
look like manga, bande dessinée or comic books anymore; they are something
new and hybrid. The elements taken from the international models may vary
considerably, which makes every one of these comics new and surprising.
Joachim Kaps, editor-in-chief of Tokyopop Germany, is convinced that young
readers perceive manga less and less as part of Japanese culture but rather as
one way of drawing comics among others (personal communication; see also
Kaps 1995 and 2001).
 250 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4

However, many of the manga that Tokyopop Germany has published

contradict this assumption. A totally different influence of Japanese manga on
the worldwide comics production can also be discerned: the imitation of certain
manga genres and styles as we find them in Japan, which produces a kind of
fake Japaneseness; the kind of manga that I have described as a simulacrum
above. It is this second type of influence I wish to concentrate on. It appears
wherever manga are read; however, as I am most familiar with the situation in
Germany, I will concentrate on that.

Building a Manga Canon

Why Germany has become such a stronghold of manga production can only be
speculated about. But the popularity of German-made manga is as astonishing
as the variety of genres and styles available. The position of German manga is
so strong that even Paul Gravett mentions numerous examples of manga from
Germany in his book – a book which was first published in Britain and which
deals with manga in general.
The situation is even more astonishing if we look at the history of manga
translation in Germany. Germany was a latecomer when the manga craze is
concerned. Although there were early translations (Project Gen’s translation
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of Hadashi no Gen reached Germany in 1982 but was published in an imprint

specializing in political and historical texts), mainstream manga came no earlier
than 19951. Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball were the basis for a manga craze at
a time when the USA had a fan following for samurai manga and when the
Romance speech communities already offered their readers numerous popular
translations of shōjo manga. Akira was translated into German in the early
1990s, but apart from a cult following of comics fans the influence was marginal.
Moreover, Akira probably rather influenced the world comics audience as the
manga itself shows influence from the French bande dessinée (cf. also Bouissou
2000: passim).
Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball shaped the general idea of manga for a general
audience. In Germany, with people who do not habitually read manga, we find
the idea of a prototypical supermanga that invariably mixes elements of both.2 In
these supermanga, the long-legged magic girl beauties with their adventurous
hairdos and huge eyes which we find mainly in shōjo manga such as Sailor
Moon appear along with the funny characters and their antics that are more
typical of shōnen manga such as Dragon Ball.
The really important novelty that came with Dragon Ball, though, is the fact
that the translation must be read back to front. Whatever the reason for this
decision may really have been (often, the artist’s wish to have the pictures
unchanged is quoted), it was influential. The idea that manga must be read ‘the
way round’ has caught hold in Germany and is one of the reasons why many
adults shun manga. In fact, the human brain does not seem to have difficulty
combining the left-to-right micro reading direction (the verbal text) with the
right-to-left macro reading direction (the panels and pages). The ability to read
back-to-front at a rather high speed (and the knowledge that you open a manga
‘the other way round’) has become an in-group sign for manga fans. It has also
become part of the definition of what manga is.
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 251

Early German manga

The two earliest German manga (often termed ‘pseudomanga’ as they were
not originally Japanese) were both drawn by men and published in the early
2000s. Whereas Robert Labs, author of Dragic Master, has gone on to become a
successful comics artist, Sascha Nils Marx, author of Naglayas Herz [Naglaya’s
Heart], seems to concentrate on his career as a commercial artist3 and published
the second volume of his manga with his own small press, whereas the first
volume appeared with one of the biggest and most influential comics publishers
in Germany. I have decided to refer to Labs not as a manga artist but as a comics
artist, as much of his recent work does not bear any obvious signs of manga
influence. His early work, however, shows strong aesthetic influences from
manga.
Marx’ Naglayas Herz looks surprisingly like a translation and consequently
shows clearly how the translated versions of manga influenced the manga in
Germany. The term imitation sounds degrading and uncreative, but in the case
of German manga, imitation does play a very important role.
Firstly, the story of Naglayas Herz is an imitation of a typical manga quest
story as we find it in Dragon Ball. Here, the heroes have to find a jewel that broke
into several small jewels and put it together again. The cast of characters is made
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up of noble and low characters. The low characters are strongly influenced
by Toriyama’s Dragon Ball style whereas the noble characters could appear in
manga for grown-ups or in shōjo manga.
Naglayas Herz must be read back to front, like Japanese manga. Moreover,
Marx uses letters from the Japanese syllable alphabets as well as kanji. They
have mainly decorative purposes but at the same time make the text look like a
translated manga where the onomatopoeia was left in its original shape.
The case of Labs is different. Many pages in his first manga Dragic Master
could as easily be classified as comics than as manga, while others have manga
elements in abundance, e.g. speedlines and lively panel arrangements. The
characters are designed in manga style too. As, in the early 2000s, comics did not
sell while manga did, publishers were well-advised to market them as manga.
Labs uses rather few manga elements except for speedlines, panel arrangements
and character design. He also made a “How to draw manga” series for the
German shōnen manga monthly Banzai!, where he also published the manga
series Crewman 3. Some of Labs’ recent publications still show manga elements,
but he has clearly developed an individual style, which could be classified as
manga as well as as comics and has consequently moved from part-imitation to
world comics as such.
Although Labs and Marx paved the way for German manga today most
successful German manga artists are young women (cf. Böckem 2006).
Apart from Labs and Marx, who, at least in some of their work, imitate
Japanese manga, there were other German comics artists who were interested
in manga but who did not resort to imitation. Two of the earliest German manga
(which were marketed as manga with a view to the manga audience) are world
comics in Gravett’s sense. As early as 2002, the German comics artists group
Moga Mobo (interestingly a Japanese name which means ‘modern girl – modern
boy’) met with the Japanese group Nou Nou Hau for a comics jam and published
the results. In 2000 Jürgen Seebeck, originally a translator of manga, published
 252 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4

Bloody Circus, a manga in colour. It has a violent content but is undoubtedly

a fine and highly original work of art. However, both these publications are
far from mainstream. Moga Mobo are only known to comics fans and have
otherwise published many interesting independent comics which do not show
any sign of a Japanese influence. With Bloody Circus, many readers complained
that it did not look like a real manga to them. In fact, the strongest influence on
Seebeck seems to have been Kazuhiro Ōtomo, who in turn has been strongly
influenced by the French bande dessinée. This shows that it is sometimes very
difficult to decide how and why certain comics should be classified as manga,
and this is also one of the reasons why I will concentrate on manga that clearly
imitates Japanese models.

Manga Competitions and Fan Art

Children have been imitating comics styles they like for a long time. However,
with manga this was suddenly big business. Competitions sprang up, for
example “Comic Campus” or “Manga Talente”, the latter a competition held
at the annual Leipzig Book Fair. The competition is extremely popular and the
quality of the entries is very high. It is made up of basically four competitions:
16-page manga age under 16, 16-page manga 16 years and older, one-page
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under 16, one-page 16 years and older (the age refers to the contestants, not the
audience) on a given topic. The topics of the past years ranged from “Friendship”
to “Sports”. But there are also manga magazines where the less ambitious can
send in one-page fan arts and stand a good chance of having them printed even
if they do not look 100 per cent professional.
The rules for manga competitions often state that all entries must be in
Japanese reading direction. It often seems as if the simple fact of drawing a
comic back to front makes it a manga. In the case of “Manga Talente”, the
finalists’ entries are published in a book, so that there is a good basis to compare
them even years after the competition. The entries differ considerably, but the
influence of various manga genres and a certain preference for shōjo manga and
funny manga can be detected over the years. Normally, the jury is faced with
between 2000 and 2300 entries, although in 2007 the entries dropped to 1400,
probably due to the larger number of competitions open to the public. Those
entries that did not make it onto the shortlist are collected in folders and can
be perused by the visitors at the Leipzig Book Fair (updated information about
these events can be found on www.comicsinleipzig.de).
German manga found a platform in the manga magazines Banzai! (shōnen
manga) and Daisuki (shōjo manga). Whereas Banzai! was discontinued after five
years in December 2005, due to the fact that Shueisha cancelled some licenses
(personal communication from Carlsen), Daisuki is still popular. Much was made
of a fan competition in Daisuki, where readers could send in short stories and
other readers could then decide on who would win the shortlist competition.
The winner’s short story (“Schokolade macht glücklich” [Chocolate Makes You
Happy] by 16-year-old Stefanie Cattes) was made into a manga by the manga
artist Zofia Garden and appeared in Daisuki (December 2006: 220-246). The
manga shows almost all the characteristics of German shōjo manga which will
be discussed below.
The free catalogues with manga previews which the big manga publishers
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 253

in Germany distribute also sometimes carry short manga by aspiring German

manga artists. In Carlsen’s latest catalogue (December 2006–March 2007
previews), the manga in question was “The Same Pleasure as Every Year” by
Franziska Steffen and Tina Lindhorst. The characters have Japanese names
and wear school uniforms; however, the topic of the manga is Halloween.
Professional German manga largely appear with the big comics labels Carlsen,
EMA and Tokyopop. German manga with an edge are published by Schwarzer
Turm, a comics label that concentrates on artistic comics for a largely grown-
up audience. Here, too, the majority of mangaka are female and shojo manga
is an obvious influence (www.schwarzerturm.de/html/mangaka.html), but the
manga quarterly Paper Theatre features various kinds of manga. Schwarzer Turm
launched a dōjinshi anthology, Kappa Maki, in March 2007.4

Using Manga Style

It is obvious that the drawing style of shōjo manga has had the biggest influence
on manga production in German. There are few exceptions (some can be found
in the two Manga Fieber collections). Fan art, however, cover the whole spectrum
of manga genres. The German fan art collection manga-ka, which was published
in 2005, has fan art from all the series that appeared in the now defunct monthly
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shōnen manga magazine Banzai! as well as fan art that does not bear any
reference to existing series.
The back-to-front reading direction has already been mentioned. It is used
as the prime signal that the reader is about to read a manga, not a comic. This
feature has remained, although manhwa from Korea, which use the same
style elements as manga but are read front-to-back, have become popular in
Germany too. But even the German mangaka Judith Park, who is of Korean
origin, still uses the back-to-front style. She started her career in manga before
manhwa became popular and has not given up on the original Japanese system.
Sometimes, the reading order for the panels is problematic, though. Mio’s
manga Geeks needs arrows to help the reader find out the correct reading order
in one instance (44).
With manga in Japanese, the speech balloons are vertically oblong. This suits
the top-to-bottom writing. Western comics normally have flattish, horizontally
oblong balloons. Here, a development can be seen. Whereas Naglayas Herz
has distinctively Western speech balloons; today, the manga not only by
professionals but also by most “Manga Talente” contestants imitate the Japanese
style. Double speech balloons, that is, two speech balloons that blend into each
other, are particularly popular.
Elements of the typical shōjo manga style that are not part of the drawing style
abound in German manga. After all, the readers have genre expectations which
the artists strive to fulfil. Some of the authors provide character portrait pages
with descriptions of the characters’ hobbies, likes and dislikes. All the female
authors use aside boxes where they address their readers directly, mention how
they got the idea for a particular scene or give information about themselves.
They also use these boxes for the typical humble excuse that is so popular
with Japanese female mangaka: They tell the readers how horrifyingly bad the
manga is and how grateful they are that the readers have nevertheless chosen
to buy and read it. Virtually all female German mangaka do this. Comments
 254 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4

between the panels which give more specific information about how to interpret
a character’s expression are less common (but found in Büttner (2007) 15, 28).
Where the drawings are concerned, the slim, doe-eyed heroes and heroines are
the staple of German shōjo manga. A feature of manga also popular with German
artists is the use of SD (super-deformed) or chibi (child’s body) characters. These
small, chubby versions of the heroes and heroines are used for comic relief as
in the Japanese models. DuO (2006) tend to represent themselves in SD style in
their asides, but there are also SDs in White Pearl by Nadine Büttner (2007).
Another popular style element taken from manga is the use of screentone,
often imported at considerable cost from Japan. Flowery backgrounds are
popular for shōjo manga.

Japanese Settings
Often, the settings of German manga are specified as Japanese, even though
sometimes the backgrounds are generic and cannot be placed culturally.
Characters’ names, however, tend to be English rather than Japanese. In
many cases, English and Japanese names are mixed, but this seems to be for
aesthetic rather than for culture-imitation reasons. However, some artists use
Japanese names, or at least names that sound Japanese to German readers. In
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Drachenschnee [Dragon Snow] by Franziska Steffen and Tina Lindhorst, the

main characters are named Tsuki, Saru, Agota and Kinsha; in Melanie Schober’s
Raccoon, the hero is called Taku.
The settings in Christina Plaka’s manga are clearly Japanese and her characters
have Japanese names, cf. Fig. 1 below. In volume 1 of Yonen Buzz, she thanks a
Kōdansha representative for providing books where she could find real Japanese
backgrounds for her artwork (103). Fabian Leitgeb (in Manga Fieber 2) obviously
also uses Japanese settings; the traffic lights look Japanese (194).
A popular signal for a Japanese setting are ruuzu sokkusu (loose socks), the
large and sloppy socks worn by Japanese schoolgirls. They make an attractive
drawing task, as the folds and shape are difficult to draw, serve to demonstrate
mangaka craftsmanship and appear in several German manga. Plaka, for
example, uses them in Yonen Buzz; Werner uses them in Jibun-Jishin and DuO
use them in Indépendent.The latter manga is interesting insofar as it seems set in
Japan except for the fact that cars drive on the right. Clothes styles that may be
found at cosplay events5, e.g. Gothic Lolita style, are popular in German manga.
A good example of this is Catwalk by Alexandra Völker.
Detailed, highly culture-specific background settings as Christina Plaka uses
them are a signal that the artist has become quite professional. More often, the
feeling of Japaneseness that manga readers obviously crave is evoked by the
names of the characters only. This is true, for instance, for Nina Werner’s manga
Jibun-Jishin.
Efforts to create Japaneseness by the use of elements that are neither clearly
text nor clearly picture is rare. For example, the authors almost never quote
Japanese songs. An exception is Thuy-Linh Tran in Manga Fieber 1 who quotes
“Butterfly” by Wada Kouji (163). As manga magazines also carry information
about J-pop, this is probably a good way to strike up a relationship with the
audience and to show them that mangaka and audience are really part of the
same subculture.
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 255
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Fig. 1: © Christina Plaka / Tokyopop Germany. All rights reserved.

 256 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4

Using the Language

Titles in Japanese or including Japanese words like Yonen Buzz or Jibun-Jishin
[Self] are quite rare. This is not a signal that the readers might not be attracted
by titles in Japanese. But in Germany many originally Japanese manga have
English or even German titles. Titles are therefore an area where imitation does
not necessarily show.
Japanese words and phrases are hardly ever used in the texts. This is
surprising, as phrases such as konnichiwa for hello or the diminutive -chan for
girls have become popular among manga readers and are used, for example, on
pages in manga magazines where manga readers look for pen pals. Plaka is the
author who ventures to offer the readers the text of a song one of the characters
writes: “Call me baka” (“Call me idiot”) (Yonen Buzz 1: 33). She does not offer
an explanation of what baka means; obviously it is assumed that the readers will
know the word. However, when she uses the diminutive ‘-chan’ in Yonen Buzz 0
– Plastic Chew, the first of her manga, she explains to the readers what it means.
Obviously, the audience has become more savvy, and the authors respect this
fact.

Using Kanji and Kana Alphabets

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The use of kanji and kana in German manga is not particularly common. Sascha
Nils Marx is one of the few manga artists who uses kanji and kana regularly,
also on his homepage. However, he cannot be considered influential.
In Manga Fieber 2 we find kana and kanji without explanation in one
instance. They appear in Langeweile [Boredom] by Fabian Leitgeb and represent
inscriptions on buildings (195). Obviously, as mentioned above, Leitgeb uses
Japanese background settings. The manga can be read and understood without
the slightest competence in kanji reading.
As mentioned before, Japanese names (and not just characters’ names) can
appear in Japanese but in Latin letters, rōmaji, and do so, for example in Eri
Maruyama’s contribution to Manga Fieber 1 (72). Many characters’ names from a
variety of manga fall into this category, too.
Again, Christina Plaka is the one German mangaka who focuses on the
Japaneseness of her texts and uses kanji frequently in her work. This is not really
surprising as she is studying for a degree in Japanese language and culture and
as the kanji and kana she writes look professional. As mentioned before, she
uses Japanese settings for her backgrounds, so it does not come as a surprise
that shop signs etc. are in Japanese (e.g. Yonen Buzz 1: 22 et passim).
Between the chapters of the manga, Plaka has drawn photograph-style
portraits of her heroes. The years in which the “photographs” are supposed
to be taken are given underneath, with the kanji for year (Yonen Buzz 1: 10, 66,
122), and although Plaka never says explicitly what the kanji itself means, she
explains to the readers that these photographs are meant to show the band
members in former years (77). If the characters in the manga read magazines,
the writing on the magazines is also in kanji and kana (67). Plaka is therefore the
German author who tries hardest to make her manga look like Japanese manga;
as the text is in German, they consequently look like translations of Japanese
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 257

manga rather than like originals.

Plaka’s use of the Japanese language and alphabets has increased over the
years. Her first manga to be published, Prussian Blue (2002), does not yet feature
kanji and kana (except in an aside to the readers on page 21). This manga also
does not yet have the specifically Japanese background settings. When Prussian
Blue was reissued as Yonen Buzz: Plastic Chew in 2006 (not only had Plaka
changed publisher; a US band with a nazi world view and the name Prussian
Blue had made it unbearable for the artist to keep ‘Prussian Blue’ as the name
of her fictitious band), Plaka added some character portraits in pencil sketches.
One of the portraits of Sayuri has a caption in katakana.
None of the authors use katakana for onomatopoeia, although these are
nowadays often left untouched in manga translation into German and in this
function can be used for beautiful calligraphic effects.

Using Japanese Symbols

Cultures often have their own symbols, quite apart from language and letters.
An example of these is the use of Japanese emoticons, which look different from
their Western counterparts. They are neither easier nor more difficult to read,
but they look strange to everyone outside the in-group and mark the user as
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someone who is in the know. Judith Park uses Japanese emoticons in her asides
to the readers where she comments on her work (the manga has no pagination);
so do Christina Plaka, DuO and Alexandra Völker. The readers know how to
read these emoticons from the pages about Japanese culture and language that
manga magazines such as Daisuki carry. A German course in Japanese in the
manga format (originally serialized in Banzai!) directed at manga lovers also has
an information box about Japanese emoticons (Kerner and Baron 2006: 27).
The little open cross, either three-armed or four-armed, that appears so
frequently in Japanese comics to signify emotions (often confusion or anger)
has also caught on with German mangaka. It appears in almost every German
manga. Another manga-specific symbol that has become popular is the little
steam clouds that signify anger. This may be due to the fact that German has the
idiom ‘to let off steam’ which means ‘to vent one’s anger’ and that consequently
this symbol fits in neatly with German expectations. And the torrential flows
of tears from the eyes of SD characters has also been adopted by German
mangaka.

Girl manga artists

As mentioned above, German young female mangaka seem to have overtaken
male or older mangaka completely. The two Manga Fieber collections make
amends insofar as they both also contain work by young male artists, but none
of these artists has as yet published a tankobon (a paperback in pocketbook
size of about 200 pages) of their manga, whereas several of the female artists
whose works were featured in the first Manga Fieber collection have done so.
The one exception is Tram Nguyen, but then he works in a team with a female
artist, Nam Nguyen (no relation), and their manga are, again, shōjo manga.
Male manga artists such as “Utopian Artist” Sascha Schätzchen, who draws
adult manga reminiscent of the style of Neon Genesis Evangelion, also do not
seem to have the typical girl cult following. The phenomenon of German girl
 258 2006. Perspectives: Studies in Translatology. Volume 14: 4

manga artists is so manifest that even the news magazine Der Spiegel ran a story
on them, claiming that German girl manga artists even surpass their Japanese
role models (Böckem 2006). The German monthly comics review Comixene ran
several stories about German female mangaka in autumn and winter 2006. All
these artists are still very young, in their twenties or even in their late teens.
As is already seen, female mangaka are also most successful with their
tankobon. As Anike Hage says, this is probably because girls are more reliable
with deadlines (Böckem 2006).6 Christina Plaka, Judith Park, Anike Hage and
Nina Werner all started by winning manga competitions, then published their
first manga series in the German girls’ monthly manga magazine Daisuki! and
finally had them published as tankobon. In November 2006, only Judith Park
remained with Daisuki! where her next manga series just started. Christina
Plaka has since left Carlsen and embraced Tokyopop. These successful female
mangaka are those whose manga belong to the ‘fake Japanese’ group (and
consequently contribute to the simulacrum effect I have described) rather
than to world comics. This is even true for Park who has a Korean immigrant
background.
Daisuki! is instrumental in binding fans and mangaka. Apart from series by
Japanese and German mangaka, Daisuki! also publishes selected fan arts and
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has a competition for “best manga story”, which is then made into a manga
by not yet so well-known female artists as described above in the manga
competitions section. There seems to have been a genuine need for this kind
of manga fan community. Before manga came to Germany, girls would hardly
ever read comics (Barbie or horse-related comics have never been really popular
in Germany). With manga, many girls found a new interest – and a chance to
realize their own creative potential. Probably this is one of the main reasons
why manga are so popular with German girls: The artist ... could be you (cf.
also Böckem 2006). Moreover, these mangaka enjoy star status. EMA offer a film
about their mangaka as a download (www.manganet.de).

Conclusion
Whereas manga has definitely had an influence on the development of world
comics, there is also another side to manga production outside Japan: the
production of manga that look as Japanese as possible. However, these manga
are not written in Japanese but in the respective native tongues and consequently
look not like originals but like manga translated from the Japanese – but as
they are not translations, but rather remind the reader of translations, and as
there is no original on which a translation could be based, they have the status
of simulacra or pseudo-translation. Most successful German manga artists
who use this style were influenced not by the original Japanese manga (they
would not have the language competence to read them) but by the translations
of manga into German they read, and by the numerous anime broadcast on
German TV since 1973, when Wickie, the first German-Japanese co-produced
anime series, was first presented to a German audience. The anime were
dubbed; the manga were translated. Without translation, manga would not
have made their way towards a mass-audience phenomenon. The information
that readers could have taken from only pictures would not have been sufficient
for understanding the whole manga and certainly would have precented them
 Jüngst. Manga in Germany 259

from reading a huge amount of manga. Understanding only the pictures makes
reading a tiring affair. Moreover, obtaining the original manga from Japan was
quite an effort before the days of the Internet. The look of manga translations has
therefore influenced manga production outside Japan considerably. Pictures,
character design, names, places and genres which appear in German manga
have been greatly influenced by the looks and contents of translated manga.
Still, the original text is in German. Manga are highly picture-dominated,
though. We can decide whether we would classify a comic as manga or not by
simply looking at it – without reading the text at all. A first look will also not
reveal whether the manga in question is a translation or a German original. It is,
however, impossible to imitate gerne and typical verbal elements (such as the
asides to the readers) without resorting to either the original text, or, if there is
a language barrier, to translations. Therefore, these simulacra are examples of
how translations can spark off a cultural phenomenon and testify to the fact
that translations are mandatory in cultural exchange, even if publications are as
picture-dominated as manga.

Notes
1. EMA made some early efforts in 1994 but without success.
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2. This is not the same as a genre mix. The idea of the prototypical supermanga sees
the elements mentioned here as necessary ingredients for every manga there is. Often
the idea of kinky sexual practices as an important manga topic is also included in this
prototype concept.
3. He designed a manga-style ad campaign for Nissan which ran in several countries in
2001.
4. Although dojinshi is normally a private fan publication, Schwarzer Turm chose to
offer a platform for just that. Dojinshi are manga magazines drawn by amateurs. They
are normally based on existing manga series; the authors invent new adventures for the
heroes or combine their favourite heroes from various series.
5. At cosplays, manga fans dress up as their favourite manga characters. It is possible to
buy the costumes; however, many fans make their own. At the end of a cosplay, there is
normally a prize-giving ceremony for the best costume.
6. Indeed there are rumours that Sascha Nils Marx had deadline trouble with the second
volume of Naglaya, which consequently appeared with a small press, not with Marx’s
previous publisher.