Manga symbols, known as “manpu” in Japanese, are those classic visual elements like sweat drops, popping veins, and smoke puffs that add so much personality to manga storytelling.

*Giga Town: A Guide to Manga Iconography!* takes a closer look at these symbols and might even be Japan’s first guide dedicated to this visual language. It uses a fun, creative approach by featuring short manga strips starring the playful animal characters from the famous Japanese scroll *Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga*. These characters bring the symbols to life while explaining their meanings.

This book is a perfect pick for anyone who loves manga and wants to dig a little deeper into the medium. Whether you’re new to manga or a longtime fan, it offers a fresh way to appreciate the art form!

Thanks to Fumiyo Kouno, the publisher Udon Entertainment, and NetGalley for this eARC. The diversity of manga iconography is quite impressive. Although I was unconsciously aware of many icons, the sheer number is surprising! The guide functions a little more like a dictionary, with each page dedicated to a design common "standard", accompanied by a brief description and a visual example. It could be an invaluable resource for illustrators and readers who are beginning to explore the world of manga and comics.

I wish this had existed when I was younger and had to explain everything about manga to my parents! I consider myself a manga aficionado at this point, but there were some things in here that even I didn't know about.

As a lifelong manga reader, I didn't expect to learn anything from this book, but I definitely did! Learning the possible origins and various meanings for common manga iconography was definitely interesting, and the cute and funny comics made it both engaging and easy to understand. I would totally recommend this book for a new manga reader of any age, or even seasoned manga lovers like myself!

Ever wondered what exactly all those little markings and facial expressions mean in manga? Or perhaps you’ve wanted to write a manga yourself but aren’t really sure how to use the markings appropriately? Well, Giga Town is just the thing for you! The simple, straightforward style of the book shows each little iconograph isolated, and its meaning. Cute little animals featured in four-box strips demonstrate the displayed iconograph, making it easier to see and understand. The strips themselves are just as entertaining.

The afterword is just as interesting, where the author addresses the position of manga panels, and the forward which speaks of the invention of manga. Every bit of this book was very interesting and engaging. Definitely something I’ll come back to if I ever get confused by manga iconography.

Overall, Giga Town is a cute, informative book perfect for aspiring manga artists or those interested in iconography.

NOTE: I received a complimentary copy from the publisher via NetGalley for review purposes only. All thought and opinions are my own.

**ARC provided by NetGalley for honest review**

Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography by Fumiyo Kouno was a very fun and interesting read for comic and manga lovers. It basically details and summarizes the introduction and uses of the different symbols or "icons" used in early Japanese art even up to today like a music note, drop of water, or spiral. These all come with examples depicted in short panel comics using the classic animal characters from the Choju Jinbutsu Giga scrolls, which are bunnies, frogs, monkeys, etc. I really enjoyed reading about this origin history piece in comics and would recommend to other fellow comics fans to check out!

An absolutely necessary resource for manga editors, students, veterans, and upcoming mangakas. Manpu is an essential element of the visual language in manga and this book is destined to be in every editor’s shelf and managaka’s studio.

As a reader it’s a valuable reference to have on hand. The iconography or manpu is explained very practically while entertaining you with caricatures of a group of animal friends in their daily life.

Thank you to NetGalley and Udon Entertainment for allowing me to get a sneak peek at this galley.

I’ve been reading manga since 2003 and because of that, I know a lot about manga and Japanese culture. I’m the type of reader who rereads a volume multiple times, carefully scanning translation notes, and paying attention to details. Yet there is SO much I did not know and learned through Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography. And what I’ve learned, I will take with me forever.

Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography was created by Fumiyo Kouno. She is also the mangaka behind the popular manga series, In This Corner of the World. The guide uses short comics featuring characters from the famous Japanese scroll Choju-jinbutsu-giga to explain popular manga symbols, known as manpu, and their meaning. If this sounds unfamiliar to you, don’t worry! The guide includes a detailed explanation of the scroll too.

The comics themselves are adorable but the meaning they provide is priceless. There are SO many symbols I thought I knew, but learned that they can convey different meanings based on other context clues in the drawing. I also learned a lot about the cultural significance of certain symbols and how they originated in Japan.

A guide like this should be a staple in every manga collection. There is so much rich history behind these symbols and since I’ve learned about them, it has transformed the way I’ve been reading manga. There’s so much added context now and I find myself thinking of the layers of messaging a mangaka may be trying to convey.

I requested this book from NetGalley for my 9-year-old, who is a voracious consumer of manga. He was initially excited about reading it, but after finishing it, he found himself a bit disappointed. He said that it's a good guide for manga newcomers who may not understand how certain images or animations are being used. However, for someone like him who has read all of One Piece ten times, he found this to be unhelpful and basic. I originally thought it might be a cute gift idea for a manga lover, but he recommends it for beginners, not for long-term fans.

This title should be in every library next to Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. It gives information on the development and explanations to understand the symbols and icons that are used in Manga and tells their meaning through the use of cute anthropomorphic animals.

A guidebook to manga iconography that uses examples from a four panel strip format, using characters from a 12th century Japanese scroll to illustrate the universal way in which these effects can be applied to any anthropomorphic creature or character.

Many of the icons will be familiar even to western readers of comics (as the foreword reminds us, pre-WWII western comics had a huge effect on Japanese manga conventions, so there are some shared icons) but others may be more challenging or difficult to parse. This handy guide explains them in a way that is simple, with multiple uses in a variety of ways in four panel strips. Some of the content, such as words spelled out in hiragana or onomatopoeias are sometimes changed to an anglicized equivalent, which can interrupt the image as a graphic element, but it largely doesn't detract from the content (especially since these are often translated in manga published in America, anyways). However, elements that aren't as familiar in the west are given simple explanations with multiple uses throughout the book (and often comics will contain prior explained icons as well) that effectively explain what might otherwise seem impenetrable, especially to new manga readers.

If someone can't parse the different symbols manga uses from western comics, this could be a useful reference. I also felt that the humor of the individual strips was funny, in an early Peanuts sort of way.

Views are my own and do not represent my institution.

I read this courtesy NetGalley and Udon Entertainment/Manga Classics. Insightful and instructional, this work by Fumiyo Kouno explains the iconography used by manga creators over the centuries, and how manga over the years have worked with Western artists, borrowing from each other. Anyone who’s read a comic book or a graphic novel or a manga, for that matter, will be familiar with the symbols that indicate the actions or even emotions that describe the story. Kouno uses traditional Japanese cartoon images of animals often seen, rabbits and turtles (yes, they do have a race, so it’s universal, so yes, there are examples of speed and frustration iconography) and monkeys and frogs and foxes. We’re learning about manga symbols in the most charming ways possible.
#GigaTown #NetGalley.

This is best as a reference guide rather than something to read front-to-back. Some concepts were very self-explanatory, especially in our modern age of emojis, but this is a quite comprehensive guide.

I found it difficult to identify the actual usage sometimes in the examples given. The art was whimsical and beautiful, though.

Thanks a lot to Udon Entertainmend for approving my request and Mangasplaining Extra for working together with Udon Ent. to bring this interesting book to English! Here's a short excerpt from my short review on my blog:

"As seen in the author’s note at the end of the book, Kouno suggests another method to go about the book at first, and Choju Giga style is an idea that pops into their mind soon after. This, to me, is the more fitting decision because historical scrolls where only visual cues and body language are used to tell a story couldn’t be more suitable for manga iconography."

Giga Town: The Guide to Manga Iconography is as it states, a guide to little additions to manga to help set the tone and vibe of a story, or a scene. It's presented in the 4-koma (four panel comic) style, which means that sometimes the joke, or the end of a story phrase is told over several of these 4-koma but do resolve in time. (And sometimes just in the one page itself!).

As this book was written in Japanese, for a Japanese audience of people who aren't too familiar with manga (the mangaka wrote it with her elderly mom in mind!) I do wish when translated for areas outside of Japan there were a lot more translation notes added. As someone who's been reading manga over half my life, while I'm already familiar with basically everything in this book I could see where things definitely could have been explained better for foreign audiences -- like why are the characters throwing beans in the 'devil' explanations (it's Setsubun, and I think any foreign audience who reads this will already know what an oni is?)? Why is the frog guy wearing a cute hat (era-specific indicator!)? and just a bunch more other things. This could have been a great way to welcome someone who's used to reading manga, or has just started, even, into more things in Japanese culture that are a mainstay of manga, but also that the Japanese reader would get immediately where a foreign reader would not.

(Also, any time an introduction says, "Hah, I bet you didn't know x!" it seems that I am already well aware of the thing they're referencing. This intro did this at least twice and I think could have just stuck to introducing the book, the cultural relevance to using the old school style animal drawings, and what we're to expect.)

But overall it was fine, the drawings were cute and good and I think it'll be an important tome for reference -- I just wish there was more to it for people less already-familiar with the contents!

Thank you to NetGalley and Udon Entertainment for the eARC in exchange for review!

This is a wonderful primer for those who are new to reading Manga and want to understand the iconography and cultural contexts on page. My only struggle was with the bunnies. I almost wish there were human characters to help illustrate these concepts better but it was informative nonetheless.

When I saw a guide to manga iconography, I was super excited, because I love manga and things like this make it easier for people to get into manga and understand the medium. I still think this would be helpful for beginners in some circumstances, but I'm confused to the audience. The art appeals to people would would be more familiar and forgiving of manga and jokes like this, not to newer readers coming into manga. While some of the iconography seems helpful and useful to learn, others feel slightly off. I also don't think the images do that great of a job conveying the iconography itself, since sometimes it was difficult to find the symbols in the images itself.

Overall a miss for me, though I think other readers might find this helpful.

This is an entertaining and educational guide to the symbols of manga created by the artist of “In This Corner of the World.” I was pleasantly surprised to see that this is not just a guide, however, and really takes the form of various short slice-of-life comics following anthropomorphic animals based on the Chōjū-giga picture scrolls. Each comic introduces a new manga symbol and possible interpretations of their meaning. This made it far more entertaining than a strictly informational guide, and the drawings are charming and easy to follow.

I would highly recommend this to new readers of manga, but even as a life-long manga reader, I still learned new things from it.

Thank you to Udon Entertainment for my ARC provided through Netgalley.

Published by Udon Entertainment and available September 3, 2024, Giga Town is a unique encyclopedia of the symbolism and artistic shorthand of manga. Called manpu, these additions to the base art express movement, emotion, sound, and many other things-- in his introduction to the book, Matt Alt describes them as "a visual code for understanding the ways in which Japanese artists see and portray the world."

This visual code is illustrated in a series of 4-koma (four panel) comic strip, each strip illustrating a particular manpu. Helping us understand the symbolism are a cast of frogs, rabbits, and monkeys as a tribute to the Chōjū-jinbutsu-giga, a series of ancient Japanese scrolls depicting whimsical animals acting like humans, often considered a spiritual predecessor to modern manga. This collection of manuscripts is what gives the book its name, Giga Town. Each comic is accompanied by a short explanation of the symbol, with added cultural context when needed. The illustrations are charming and the skill in which Kouno recreates the Chōjū-giga animals is impressive, she's a great mangaka best known for In This Corner of the World.

This guide will prove indispensable to manga readers, whether seasoned otaku or new fans. I especially liked the visual component-- too often I read books that only describe visual media and don't include examples. Giga Town understands that manga is a visual medium and any discussion of it needs example images. The cute illustrations are fun and follow in the footsteps of early Japanese art will be appealing to both newcomers and people already interested in the historical art. I really enjoyed my time with this guide and already hope I can swing this as nonfiction manga, rather than a nonfiction work on art, so I can order it for my library collection.

A fabulous guide to manpu that is easily digestible and full of things that I did not know about the art form. This is great for the people who want to know a little more, the ones who want the meaning behind the art.