Comparing Comics and Manga to Komiks - Cross-Cultural (Dis)Similarities in American, Japanese, and Filipino Comics - Master’s Thesis

Aug 21, 2026

Has the drawing style in the Philippines been influenced by Japanese manga, do the komiks resemble American comics more, or have Filipino artists created their own style? This thesis compares American, Japanese, and Filipino books using attentional types that capture framing and presentation of meaningful elements. Spanish books are included to reflect the Philippines’ colonial history. A corpus of fifty books is analyzed with ANOVA and k-means clustering. Results show Japanese and Filipino books use comparable attentional types, while older Filipino komiks form a distinct clustering. Considering publication dates reveals clearer cross-country differences. A fixed three-cluster analysis suggests strong overall similarity, but older komiks remain the exception. Adding Spain shows Japan, the Philippines, and Spain can be categorized similarly, whereas American books differ. Findings position Filipino framing as visually distinct in older komiks and more similar to Japanese manga in newer komiks.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages35

Reading Time1 h 28 min

AccessFree to download

Abstract

Introduction

Framing

Theoretical Framework

Framing

1 Comparing Comics and Manga to Komiks: Cross-Cultural (Dis)Similarities in American, Japanese, and Filipino Comics Janessa May Vleghert SNR: 2070053 Department Communication and Cognition School of Humanities and Digital Sciences Tilburg University Tilburg Master’s Thesis Communication and Information Sciences Communication and Cognition Track Supervisor: dr. Neil Cohn Second Reader: prof. dr. Marc Swerts July 2022 2 Abstract Has the drawing style in the Philippines been influenced by Japanese manga, do the komiks resemble American comics more, or have Filipino artists created their own style? This thesis explored the differences in American, Japanese, and Filipino books based on attentional types delineating the framing or presentation of meaningful elements. This comparison was complemented with Spanish books as the Philippines has a long colonial history with Spain. The corpus of fifty books was analyzed with an ANOVA and k-means clustering. The ANOVA showed that Japanese and Filipino books make comparable use of attentional types. The predicted k-means analysis showed that the comics were primarily and equally divided over two clusters; the manga were clustered three times as much in one cluster compared to the other books, and older Filipino books were clustered separately. The differences in framing over time and across the countries are more apparent when the publication dates are considered; older and newer books were clustered differently. However, the fixed k-means analysis, where the books were forced into three clusters, indicated a strong similarity between the three countries. Only the old komiks formed the exception. The last k-means analysis contained books from Spain. Interestingly, the clustering indicated that books from Japan, the Philippines, and Spain could be categorized similarly, but American books are different. Together, these analyses indicate that the visual language regarding framing was distinct in older Filipino komiks, but newer komiks are more similar to Japanese manga than American comics. Altogether, these findings confirm the differences between American and Japanese framing and extend this knowledge by adding the Philippines to this cross-cultural understanding of visual language. Keywords: comics, manga, attentional types, visual language 3 Comparing Comics and Manga to Komiks: Cross-Cultural (Dis)Similarities in American, Japanese, and Filipino Comics Most of the time, if not always, comics are built out of panels, like the one marked in Figure 1 . Sometimes these panels take up an entire page without a discernible border, or all of the panels melt together like a collage, but in essence, their function stays the same: each panel works together to convey a story. The quantity of meaningful information within a panel or lack thereof will be analyzed in this paper; this is called framing (Cohn et al., 2012) . The framing structure of comics is an aspect of visual language and is related to the culture of the comics’ country of origin. For example, comics from America tend to use more characters than Japanese manga (Cohn, 2011; Cohn et al., 2012) . It could be that comics from the Philippines also convey information differently. Figure 1 Examples of pages with "regular" bordered panels (a), no borders (b), and a collage (c) (a) A page without borders, the first panel is outlined (b) A page consisting of one panel (c) A collage, the different panels are outlined The Philippines has a long history of "cultural contact" even before the colonization by Spain and the United States and the brief occupation by Japan, as there are links with other (Asian) countries, such as China (Rodell, 2002, p. 8) . While this history has led to a 4 nation with different racial origins, customs, and languages, most of its people would call themselves Filipino, one united group (Bernad, 1971) . However, this unity may not be found within the graphic

FAQs

What is the main research question of the thesis?

The thesis asks whether Philippine comic drawing styles were influenced by Japanese manga, whether komiks resemble American comics more, or whether Filipino artists developed their own visual style.

How does the thesis operationalize differences between comics and manga?

It analyzes framing by using attentional types that describe how meaningful elements are presented within panels, including a deletion test distinguishing active entities from inactive background elements.

What methods and results are reported for comparing the countries?

ANOVA and k-means clustering are applied to a corpus of fifty books. ANOVA shows Japanese and Filipino books use comparable attentional types, while k-means reveals two main clusters for comics and that older Filipino books cluster separately.

Aug 21, 2026

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