Manga
By Josephine Zhang
Good afternoon, dear teacher and classmates. After excellent 29 speeches, it’s finally come to my turn. I feel very honored to stand here and begin my presentation. Today I want to talk about something interesting.
First, I will show you some pictures.
Do these pictures call up your beautiful memories?
As you see , my topic is Manga. This is my outline. Here I want to introduce some conceptions of it in briefly.
Manga, as a term originally put forword in Japan, refers to comic and anime especially the Japanese ones. Containing stories, manga is typically printed in black-and-white pictures. Only a single episode will be presented at one time in the magazine, and next time another e
pisode will be continued. If the series is successful, collected chapters may be republished in paperback books. If a manga series is popular enough, it will be animated after or even during its run, although sometimes manga are drawn centering on previously existing live-action or animated films.
Manga can be classfied according to many reasons. I have list some of them on the PPT page. Manga about action-adventure, for example, One Piece（海贼王）; about sports and games, such as The Prince of Tennis（网球王子）; about history, such as Hauula Kenshin（浪客剑心）; the detective reasoning ones, a very famous one --Detective Conan（名侦探柯南）; about science fiction and fantasy, EVA（新世纪福音战士）; the ones set their background on the campus, such as Oran High School Host Club（樱兰高校公关部）and many others…
Among the mangas I have listed, the Prince of Tennis is one of the most popular comics and anime titles in Japan. It is written by Takeshi Konomi(许斐 刚), who has also written a manga called Cool. The manga once was published in the magazine--Shueisha’s Weekly S
honen Jump（少年JUMP周刊） in Japan, and even appeared in English in North America by VIZ Media. In 2005, the TV Tokyo showed its final episode. The story is about a group of middle school tennis players who pursue their dreams about tennis. Echizen Ryoma, the main character, also a freshman in the Seishunn school（青学）, plays tennis with considerable skill, but dosen’t love tennis. He encountered many hardships in his school tennis career especially in the Japan middle school tennis games. With the help of his partners and friends and through hardworking, he finally developed the love for tennis and won the champion with his friends of the seishunn’s tennis team. The characters in the manga all have their own attractive personalities. Echizen Ryoma, always has confidence and never give up; Tezuka Kunimitsu, the captain of the tennis team, is very solem and devotes all of his energy to tennis and the tennis team; Fuji Sysuke, having great talent, seems to be smiling all the time and friendly to others… I am moved by their hardworking, persistence, enthusiasm and devotion. As I know the manga has spur many students on to play tennis. Now I will show a clip from the final episode. Never give up, the belief bears firmly in my mind and encourages me always.
Then let’s turn to some key words of manga.
The term OVA is the abbreviation of Original Video Anime, which is not shown on TV, and only recorded in the DVD tapes. OP and ED mean the theme song and the ending song respectively.                             
The CAST or socalled CV refers the actors who voice the characters in animations. In Japanese manga, CV was socalled Seiyū(声优). Seiyū is a kind of star with beautiful voice and extraodinary skills. Don’t ignore them! They play vital roles in the animations. Without the contributions made by them, the world of manga will be silent and the characters can’t be alive. My favourite Seiyū is Hayashibara Megumi(林原惠美）. She started her career as a Seiyū from 1986 until now. She is also famous as a singer and DJ. Her voice is very soft, sweet and sometimes,very cool. That depends on the character she voice. She has dubbed several eminent manga characters, such as Ayanami Rei in EVA and Haibara Ai in Detetive Conan. Those characters are so famous and classic that we fans can’t forget the glamorous voice of 许斐刚Megumi. She has visited China for three times. Her fans in China, and
even in the western countries address her The Queen of The Seiyū. I will show you a small section which was casted by my dear Queeni.
In the anime, there is a girl called Haibara Ai, who impress me deeply in mind in the manga world. So I want to introduce her to all of you, though some of you have known her. She is one of the heroines in the manga Detective Conan. She looks like a little girl about six or seven years old. But, in fact, she has already been 18 and gotten the MD degree and been forced to stay in a gang in her early life. Her greatest invention is APXT-4869, which can lead the person to death quietly or to make people renew his youth in appearance. This medicine helped Ai escape from the supervision of the criminal organization and also caused the main character---Kudou Shinchi who was a high school detective become a little boy---Conan. Though having experienced hardships and living in danger now and then, Haibara Ai assists Conan in investigating and solving cases and keeps fighting against darkness with her intelligence, reason, nonchalance and courage. Now, let’s enjoy the introduction about her in the film of Conan, which have been translated into English.
I admire courage, and even her cool personality attracts me a lot. Her tragic story makes me feel a slight of sadness each time when I see her in the manga.
I have talked so much about Megumi and Ai, Now let’s turn back to the key word--- cosplay. Cosplay is abbreviated costume play and refers to the activity of dressing up in costume to act the manga character. Cosplay, which originated from Japan, has developed a popular form of entertainment among students and young adults in this state. Now it is gaining more and more popularity. In China, there are many cosplay clubs especially on the campus. In our university, some students majoring in art have organized such kind of activities. This photograph presents the cosplay show on our campus.
In spite of the fact that manga has a great influnce on our young generation, there are differet attitudes towards manga. Parents tend to think that manga has many faults. Yeah, one manga work often consists of a large series of books or animations, so it may cost us plenty of time and money and harm our eyes. What’s more, they also think that some manga, such as One Piece and Death Note(死亡笔记), have something violent which may
cause improper behaviors and even crimes among children. Some students are too addicted into the world of manga to concentrate on their study or work. It is also a count.