For the essay, I wanted to read some mangas that I could reference and also talk about how sound is used within them.
One I desperately wanted to include was a manga by Tsutomu Nihei called “Blame!”, this manga is one of my favorites because of its world-building and atmosphere. It’s a dystopian horror sci-fi that follows a young man traversing through an enormous steel labyrinth. I thought this would be the perfect manga to show the uniqueness of Japanese onomatopoeia or visual sound design as Nihei is famed for his gritty art style and mood in his mangas.
However, as shown above, I ran into a few problems. First, I could not find a Japanese version on the internet, meaning that a lot of the context behind the onomatopoetic words was literally lost in translation. Second, the use of onomatopoeia in Nihei work is actually quite simple, illustrating the sounds that could be heard within the scenes and not going past that. Third, the style of storytelling did not lend itself to complex onomatopoeia or onomatopoeic language that helps set the tone as Tsutomu Nihei purposely wants to make character motivations mysterious and ambiguous.
Another artist I knew would be perfect to highlight the relationship between sound and manga was Araki Hirohiko, creator of “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure”. “Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure”, is a supernatural action saga about a family called the Joestars that battle against adversaries through the generations using “spiritual powers”. Hirohiko is known for his love of western rock music, electronic music and models/fashion, a lot of that influence leaks into the sound design of the manga he makes.
Hirohiko makes heavy use of repetitive onomatopoeia to set the tone of the scene but also the pace of the scene so that the reader follows the story coherently and in rhythm with the “story beats”. Something else he does a lot in his “Jojo” series is make his characters strike impossible poses with the sound effects as an important part of the visual aspect of panels, to the point where something like the character ゴ ( semantically meaning scary or menacing in English) is synonymous with the arch enemies within the series.
I’ll probably reference something different for Araki Hirohiko in my essay because I think his work is very important in making an example of how sound art is used as a visual medium just as much as an auditory one in manga.
Another mangaka I wanted to reference is the late and great Kentaro Miura and his magnum opus “Berserk”. “Berserk” is a Japanese dark fantasy set in medieval Europe that focuses on a mercenary called Guts and his journey. This manga practically popularised the genre of dark fantasy single-handedly and is probably the most influential manga that exists right now. This is in no small part to the expert shot composition that populates the manga.
While the sound design isn’t anything new or anything that you can’t necessarily find in a manga for boys (Shonen manga), it’s the genius of when it’s used that makes it interesting. In a shot like the one above. The kanji reads something like doki but is more in reference to a singular heartbeat or the heart skipping a beat. The series of panels contain words/letters; however, the way it is composed, as well as how the visual design of the sound effects change in congruence to the point that the sound blurs the lines between the auditory and the visual. Like Araki Hirohiko, the sound design is used to pace the scene as well as reflect the inner state of the main character, slowly becoming restless as he realises what is going on around him.