Manga and Anime: The new literature?

[Tarshish]

I prefer the Odyssey myself, but I haven't read either in Greek yet.

Literature will never die out, but it might just become what it was in the first place: a past time for the educated elite. Perhaps the masses will move on to more simplified forms of entertainment like when the Romans became less interested in drama and much more interested in bloodsport.

It's sad to imagine children won't ever read 20,000 Leagues under the Sea, or Treasure Island, but will wait in line for hours to get the next Harry Potter (I like Harry Potter too but it's not literary brilliance).

I believe someone will always be driven to put words together to tell amazing stories as long as mankind remains. Anime and Manga were fun (at least for me anyway. I stopped both a couple of years ago), but they just will never compare to literature.

[The Summoner of Leviathan]

I do not think that a novel will be replaced by a book. There is so much about books that you cannot get frm manga or graphic novels. Here is just a comment to what Rye said though. Manga (or the few I have read) can, at times, have deepr meanings than what you see at the surface. For instance, Sailor Moon. Sure she is a teenager going around in a short skirt saving the world, but that is only superficial. Underlinening the whole plot of the entirity is the idea that both good and evil were orn as one, seperated at birth, and they constantly attract each other, striving to unify. Obviously to get that from Sailor Moon you have to read all of it, especially towards the end. But there are more themes under surface. I am not saying that they are anywhere close to my favorite books, but still there is more than meets the eye. I will never give up on my novels, no matter how picky I am.

[edczxcvbnm]

Manga/Comics are different than a typical novel in that they are only dialog for the most apart. This equates them to more of a play. I for one hate novels but I do like some plays. The problem with plays that you read is that they are usually devoid of creativity and imagination and end up sticking to more realistic things where as a Manga is acted out on the page so the sky is the limit.

That is my 2 cents on this.

[RPJesus]

This isn't really sensible argument- most kids have never read much anyway. When you look at the statistics, it's only in the last few decades that most kids have been reading much- it wasn't really a major part of life. Besides, most people never read classical literature, they all read adventure stories and the like (or crappy romance for particularly stupid girls). A kid reading Asimov in the 70s and a kid watching Japanimes now aer really doing the same thing- it's just low-key entertainment, with vauge attempts at deeper meaning to hold the plot together.
Besides, some quality Japanime is really just as good as a lot of 'literature', Harry Potter 'books', for example. Like I said, it's not really about how the stuff is experienced, but what they are actually about.