The Discovery of Anime & Manga

📖 The Scoop

Enjoy the first English children’s picture book on how Japanese animation and comics were created! Amazingly illustrated, this storybook features a bilingual Japanese translation.

This is the third adventure in our series on cool inventions created in Asia. The cute red panda Dao makes history come alive by transporting the kids Emma and Ethan back in time. Together they learn how fantastic creations came to be and zip back to the future! This dynamic journey explores the evolution of Japanese animation and comic books.

Published in newspapers, magazines, books, and graphic novels, comics became TV shows, movies, and games. These entertainment brought Japanese pop culture across the globe and influenced artists everywhere.

This quest features 100 of your favorite characters and creators: from Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy and Rumiko Takahashi’s Ranma 1/2 to Hayao Miyazaki’s Studio Ghibli and Totoro. Mazinger, Speed Racer, and Doraemon are joined by Sailor Moon, Dragon Ball, and Pokémon. Mobile Suit Gundam, Akira, and Ghost in the Shell meet Full Metal Alchelmist, One Piece, and One Punch Man. Iconic and best-selling series are brought to life with the amazing artwork of Juan Calle, an otaku (big fan) himself.

Adults and kids can learn about the categories shonen, shojo, and mecha (giant robots), use a handy glossary, and draw inspiration to create their own amazing stories. Teachers and librarians will find this a great addition to their comic book and graphic novel collections.

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"The Discovery of Anime and Manga bursts from the page with energy and color. Informative and entertaining, it's a beautifully rendered concise introduction to manga and anime for not only children, but comics fans of all ages."

- Dr. Dale Jacobs, Department of English, University of Windsor, Canada

“In the book we see iconic Japanese anime characters such as Astroboy, Doraemon, Dragon Ball, My Neighbor Totoro, Sailor Moon, Pokemon, One Piece, One Punch Man and more. This makes the book not only fun for children, but also for adults, as they can flip through and remember beloved childhood characters. The story moves along with bright bold illustrations by Juan Calle. Each page is a love letter to manga, making this a delightful read for children and parents.”

- Sampan

“Brimming with colorful, dynamic illustrations...The Discovery of Anime & Manga is an eye-opening tour.”

- Midwest Book Review

"I will never forget watching My Neighbor Totoro with my daughter and the worlds that the film ushered in for me. I had never experienced moving images, sounds, pictures, music in quite that way before and the potentials and powers of animated film strongly impacted me as a scholar. It was then that I recognized that animé and manga had the kind of beauty that Susan Sontag described about as ‘a beauty with adjectives, arranged on a scale of ascending value and incorruptibility.’ In Amara and Chin’s The Discovery of Animé and Manga told through stunning illustrations by Calle, they offer a detailed, storied account of the evolution of animé and manga in Japan and eventually around the world. From whimsical drawings in the early twentieth century to kamishibai tales told in on street corners to the ubiquity of adults and children drawing animé and manga embodying otaku in their everyday lives. Everyone should read this history book to get a true understanding about the significance of not just animé and manga, but the power of multimodality on how we think and learn."

—Dr. Jennifer Rowsell, Professor of Literacies and Social Innovation, University of Bristol, School of Education

Genre: Juvenile Fiction / Comics & Graphic Novels / Historical (fancy, right?)