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In today's world, there's an abundance of comic genres adored by the youth, and Manhwa is among them. In this article, Mytour aims to clarify the concept of Manhwa and help readers distinguish between manga, manhwa, and manhua.
1. What Exactly is Manhwa?
Manhwa, known as 만화 in Korean, is a genre of comics originating from South Korea and has been significantly influenced by Japanese manga.
Like all other comic genres, Manhwa utilizes images with frames and speech bubbles to narrate a story or convey certain content.
Manhwa stories are heavily influenced by Japanese manga, so in the earlier days, their drawing styles and effects weren't much different from manga. However, with the development of webtoons (Korean comics online), manhwa has followed its own artistic direction.
Manhwa stories often feature independent panels or run vertically on a page. The panel sizes are larger, and there's more white space outside the frames compared to manga.
In contrast to black and white manga, manhwa comics are usually fully colored. However, this results in a trade-off as they lack the distinct action effects that are a strong characteristic of manga.
2. Differentiating between Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua
As three distinct comic genres, although they all serve as entertainment for readers, manga, manhwa, and manhua have noticeable differences.
2.1. Similarities among Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua
- Utilize illustrations to tell stories.
- Utilize speech bubbles to narrate the story or convey characters' dialogue.
- Many drawing styles and effects may appear similar but are distinguished by the author and the publishing unit originating from different countries.
- The proportions of human bodies in the comics usually correspond to real-life proportions, but facial features are often exaggerated, such as larger eyes, simplified noses and mouths drawn in 2D style, and hair depicted in chunks and strands (with many characters having weightless, upward-swept hairstyles).
2.2. Differences among Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua
Although there are many distinctions to separate most manga, manhwa, and manhua, in reality, many of their storylines blend different styles and are largely influenced by the popularity of Japanese comics – manga. Therefore, the most accurate criterion to differentiate between the three types of comics remains the nationality of the author and the publishing unit.
Thank you for reading and following our article 'What is Manhwa? Distinguishing manga, manhwa, manhua' on Mytour. We hope that through this article, you have gained an understanding of what manhwa is and can differentiate between the aforementioned genres of storytelling.
