What is the general idea of manga/anime

[Katherine]

The feel I've gotten from anime (haven't checked out any manga at the library yet) is that the genre tends toward psychological themes: a big theme is along the lines of ego that's not destructive versus ego that's terribly destructive. The InuYasha anime is a good case in point.

I watched "Affections Touching Across Time" and naturally was drawn to its strong feminist bent. It's pretty cool that InuYasha as proud and vengeful a character as he is, he was not too proud to accept a boost in strength from his friends during times of weakness or from Kagome to up the ante in their battle with the super demon Menomaru.

[Joyce Fetteroll]

I get that feeling too. The best has a psychological depth that American story telling often lacks. (Maybe it's because we only get a portion of what's available. All foreign films seem to have a depth, but that's because we don't get their schlok ;-)

I was thinking that Spider-Man has some depth but he feels different. Maybe because he's a superhero who *happens* to have real human problems. Anime feels more like Batman who is a hero *because* he has problems.

Inuyasha feels like he's always struggling and that affects his choices and the situations he's in. Same with Kenshin. In fact his need to not kill again often create the situations and test his resolve.

[Nola]

I think that manga are not much different from word-on-paper books, in that they are about so many topics. So, somewhere out there it's not unlikely that there is a manga that does not have this trait.

But you have a point, there is a definite trend.

In D. Gray Man (DGM) the main character becomes an exorcist and does good things because of a fault he committed earlier on in his life. This is one example, but there are lots of other manga/anime that are like that.