8 - Reading Story-Manga

Summary

Narrative is a “mimesis” of human action, as defined by Aristotle. Mimesis is achieved by means of discourse, the combination of expressive signs available in a medium. In graphic narratives or story-manga, discourse utilizes three primary elements: image, word, and panel, with various expressive techniques developed for each. The actual signs of discourse, however, serve only as a starting point. It is by utilizing imaginative supplementation that the reader is able to interpret events, receive impressions, understand temporal and spatial transitions, and grasp the overall structure of the narrative world, that is, the story. The cognitive process of the reader can be broken down into three hypothetical phases: micro-, meso- and macroscopic. This chapter provides an outline of each phase in order to demonstrate the distinctiveness of manga as a narrative medium in terms of its expressive means and the resulting narrative experience.