Question re: Manga- typical 'superhero'?

So, recently, got into a discussion with friends about the archetypal superhero in american comic books. If you distilled it down, ability-wise, you’d probably have flight, super strength, maybe super reflexes, and a high degree of physical stamina / toughness. You’d also have a relative handsomeness / ruggedness, or, to be blunt, an incredibly large chest if you were female. Depending on the era of the comic book, you’d follow the general zeitgeist of heroism for the times. You’d also likely have a secret identity and at least one person you cared about who’d get involved in adventures every once-in-a while.

I’m wondering how much of this holds true to any ‘superhero’-style manga? Is there an archetype that can be gleaned from them, otherwise?

I admit haven’t read much manga, but I can’t think of any that I would describe as ‘superhero’ manga to begin with. The ‘superhero’ genre of American comics is just that - an American genre. I don’t see any reason to assume the Japanese have some subset of their own comics that conforms to that genre’s norms any more than you’d expect there to be American equivalents for various Japanese genres. Do American ‘shoujo’ heroines also tend to be sweet, clumsy, bad at math, and surrounded by handsome guys?

There are several archetypes in manga. One is the very cute middle-school or junior-high-school girl who transforms into a beautiful costume, waves a magic wand, utters meaningless English phrases, and zaps the villains. See Sailor Moon for one of the series that started it all (and which is still going).

Another archetype is the superpowerful robot/android in the form of a very cute teenage girl, e.g., Mahoro Ando (of Mahoromatic) or Nuku Nuku (of All Purpose Cultural Cat Girl Nuku Nuku).

A third is teenagers (of either or both genders) piloting enormous robots – “mecha” – against the bad guys.

Also unusually large swords, from the little I’ve seen. What’s up with that?

I think there’s some amount of reversal in terms of body shape - in Manga, the biggest badass will often be the apparently normal-looking or even kiddish looking character. And even in general the hugely-musled types tend to be the bad guys while the heroes are fit but not remarkable in build.

I would guess that the huge weapons thing is possibly just an equivalent to the fantastic physiques of American-style comics; an obvious display of power without actually using it.

I’m not sure what I would consider “superhero” manga, either. I can’t think of any clear analogues to Superman/Batman and so on… I think the best analogue would be Spiderman; you get the adventures of Spiderman and the story of Peter Parker, a layer of fantastic plus a level of normalcy.

One difference I’ve notice between American and Japanese comic books is that the Japanese tend to show their heroes WORKING a lot harder to develop their abilities. American comics tend to focus on the adventures of heroes with fixed powers, while Japanese comics often put a large emphasis on training and improvement.

(This is obviously not a complete list, just ones I could remember off the top of my head.)

Archetypes applicable to all genres of boys’ comics:
*The Shonen Retard - typically the lead character, not the brighest tool in the box but stubborn to a fault and extraordinarily loyal to his friends. He also has some special “spark” to him that makes him eventually triumph over his enemies and even convert some of them to the good side. (Also known as the Spiky-Headed Hero)
*The Rival - supporting male character, something of a nerd, and has a love/hate relationship with the lead that borders on subtext. They certainly argue like a married couple, anyway…
*The Token Girlfriend - supporting female character, she’s there to look pretty and helpless and rescued from certain peril and reassure us that the lead character doesn’t play for the other team. (Unless it’s a harem comedy–see below.)
*The Letch - age tends to be variable, but he’s never good looking and almost always socially awkward to the point that girls find him repulsive. Enjoys porn, peeping, groping and rape fantasies.

Genre heroes:
*The Mecha Pilot - always too young to be a pilot, he stumbles into the job via forces beyond his countrol and is amazing at it despite having no prior training, and no matter how much he might not like it he’s stuck with the job.
*The Wanderer - typically someone who’s had a couple decades on him, a traveling swordsman/cowboy/whatever who’s seen his share of bloodshed in his time and travels the world righting wrongs.
*“Blob-kun” - a derogatory term for the male lead in a harem comedy (i.e., one male surrounded by many females competing for his attention), typically a nice, average guy with no real personality so that the viewer can insert themselves in the place of said character.

Archeypes applicable to all genres of girls’ comics:
*The Magical Girl - By virtue of being an alien, the reincarnation of an ancient race, or related to supernatural beings (or some combination thereof), can tap into mystical powers via command phrase or magical item to fight evil or what have you.
*The Best Friend - knew the main character since childhood, acts as the characters’ foil/sounding board and occasionally romantic rival

But the main character still wins the majority of his battles anyway, sometimes in a way that’s obviously the writer stacking the odds in his favor. Any losses are minor setbacks that just means he needs another training montage.

This has gotten to the point that I don’t really care as much about main characters as the supporting cast, because their stories end up being more interesting.

Off the top of my head, I’d say manga/anime/live-action henshin (“transform”) heroes like Ultraman, Kamen Rider, and Kikaider probably fit the bill for Japanese super-heroes. But there’s a lot of differences there still. Someone else should talk about them because I’m not very knowledgeable about that style.

Additionally, one could point out the fantasy martial-arts shows like Inuyasha, Dragonball, Bleach, Naruto, and say that these are Japan’s super heroes. Tthey certainly all seem to reuse animation over and over, have mid-fight introspective recaps, talk extensively about the character’s relative power levels and the need to power up, or learn that one new super-move. They also typically have a dumb, headstrong male lead character.

This bears some clarification:

Mecha’s a western term, as I understand it, the Japanese genre terminology translates into:

“Realistic Robo” - shows/comics like Gundam, Macross (one of several anime edited to make the north american cartoon, “Robotech”), Patlabor, etc. These works generally try to have a certain level of believability and realism to the machinery, and are usually epic sci-fi war-stories or something to that effect.

“Super Robo” - shows like Mazinger Z (“Tranzor Z” in north america), Giant Robo, Getter Robo, the Brave series (including GaoGaiGar). These usually have a teenager or small child (usually a boy) who either directly pilots, or orders around, a superpowered robot. These shows emphasise style over plausibility, and are usually very cartoonish and over-the-top (to the point that they are often lumped together as childish, although not every series is; eg. Big O, Gurren Lagann, or Evangelion*)

Then there’s “Sentai” shows, like Voltron or Power Rangers (and it should be noted, the North American “power rangers” is a composite of many different live action sentai series, with new sequences shot for english audiences, hence the constant re-invention of the machines and enemies). Groups of people (usually all teens) who fight in colorful uniforms (often with magical or fantastical abilities) and then pilot themed machines that link together to form a humaoid robot to have a godzilla style battle at the end.

*Some shows blur the lines to one extent or another; G Gundam, essentially a satire of Gundam and Street Fighter type games, is definitely more Super Robo than anything else. Other shows like Evangelion don’t really fit any format easily (the mechanics of Eva are largely super, but the tone and story-telling are way outside the norm for such a show).
Gundam Wing, among other things has very little actual technobabble for a realistic robo show, and some prety over-the-top powers, not to mention the sentai-like 5-gundam group and their highly one-dimensional pilotss and clearly delineated abilities and color schemes.

Mecha’s a Japanese term…it’s just a whole lot broader than in western use - Giant robots are mecha, but so are motorbikes, cars, airplanes - hell, washing machines and computers, even. The term for the genre in Japanese would be Giant Robot.

‘Real Robot’ is the more standard usage, IME.

This…isn’t really right. Sentai typically refers to certain live-action henshin-heroes series, produced by Toei, which may, or may not, include Gestalt Robots.

GoLion takes a lot of inspiration from the Sentai series - aspects of the team dynamic, and colour-coded uniforms, for instance - but they, in turn, had mostly borrowed them from the anime Gatchaman (which was inspired by the Toei henshin series Kamen Rider, which was…etc), and Sailor Moon would later adapt many of the concepts.

Of course, I bow to the master, Tengu.

I just wanted to clarify that “giant robot” stuff isn’t all one genre, and actually consists of a number of very different styles.

I also think Dotchan’s post seemed to cover a lot of the more cliche anime/manga styles pretty well.

I’ve actually seen a few real-life swords like this, online—like the “zanbato” or “horse-slayer” sword, which was supposedly an anti-cavalry weapon. Personally, though, I rather doubt the combat effectiveness of such a weapon. I’d guess—and the neutrality-desputed fellow on wikipedia seems to agree—that such swords were probably ceremonial, decorative, or got the user killed or were rendered obsolete by other weapons.

But still, they’re impressive looking, and historical, so it was probably natural that they’d end up in the hands of fantasy heroes (Not that this is limited to manga and anime—witness all the western heroes who end up with skull-encrusted claymores, or akimbo-wielded .50 AE Desert Eagles).

Aaaand…for the interest of the discussion, may I present: anime tropes and anime character types? Handy stuff.