Choosing a Genre for Your Manga Story

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Identifying a genre for your manga story is quite essential. Adventure, fantasy, drama… A genre is somehow a promise as to what the reader will find in your manga. You should therefore know the most common genres and make sure that your manga adheres to its principles.

This article will present you with the most common genres.

What is the genre of a manga story?

The genre is basically a categorisation used to indicate the content of a story. This is something like action, occupational, drama.

An occupational story for instance will indicate that the content of the story will be set around a specific occupation, like a tennis, or cooking. An action manga on its side will have chases and cascades.

Of course a story can mix multiple genres. Action-adventure is common for instance and is a promise of stunts and of foreign landscapes.

These genres are used in different industries like literature, cinema, games… and each have many sub-genres which give an even more precise indication of the ambience like heroic fantasy which indicates a fantasy world generally set in times where swords and magic are common.

Why should I choose a genre for my manga story?

Choosing the genre, or genres, for your manga story allows you to drive the content of your outline and script.

If you are writing an action manga story, then you should have multiple items in your outline that relate to chases or escapes. If it isn’t the case, then either the genre of your manga story isn’t action. Or you need to add more dangerous situations to bring periodic action scenes into your story.

You can say your story adheres to a genre if it is constantly present in the story, or if you have at least some recurring scenes that include this genre.

Having one scene where your character confesses his love does not make your story a romance. This love should show throughout the story.

Classical genres

Below are the main genres we can find in literature and entertainment. And they are of course widely used in manga.

Action

The action genre primary focuses on putting the hero in situations that require the hero to take action to overcome them. This can be fights, battles, chases, escapes…

Adventure

The adventure genre involves having the hero journeying into places which he is unfamiliar with, or in a fashion that is unconventional. This can be crossing the sea, mountains, a galaxy, or a kitchen as a 3 inches being…

Occupational

The occupational genre focus on the hero practicing and evolving within a specific occupational (be it amateur) domain, like sports, arts, culinary….

Comedy

The comedy genre sets the focus on humour and joy, either by having humorous and/or cheerful protagonists, or by putting the hero’s in humorous situations.

Slice of life

The slice-of-life genre shares the everyday life of the hero. It is generally accompanied with a mix of comedy and drama.

Drama

The drama genre focuses on the evolution of emotions and psychology of characters in realistic situations. 

Romance

The romance genre sets the accent on sentiments and love, implying either love between the hero and another character, the hero seeking this relationship with another character, or another character seeking this relationship with the hero.

Crime

The crime genre involves the hero trying to resolve crime cases or to prevent them. It can also be the hero committing crimes or being hindered or prevented in doing so.

Mystery

The mystery genre sets the focus on the hero trying to solve puzzles, using available clues to do so.

Thriller

The thriller genre sets the accent on bringing fear and excitement to the reader by putting the hero in tense situations.

Horror

The horror genre sets the accent on stressing and scaring the reader by putting the hero in tense and horrific situations or by having the hero perpetrating horrific acts.

Fantasy

The fantasy genre sets the focus on magic and supernatural forces (unicorns, elves, dragons, sorcery…).

Speculative

The speculative genre is all about putting the hero in imaginary parallel worlds, like super hero or paranormal stories.

Science fiction

Science fiction sets the focus on a world where science and technology prevail. Be it robots, IA, starships…

Historical

The historical genre sets the focus on recounting historical events or sequences of events.

Erotism

Erotism sets the focus on nudity and implicit sexual acts depiction.

Pornography

Pornography sets the focus on explicit sexual acts depiction.

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This is it for this article. As always to not hesitate to like and share, and to comment and ask questions.

See you!

Stef