exploring the intersection of new media and everything else

Long a popular form of media in Japan and the rest of Asia, Manga has taken the United States by storm. Wired reports that in 2007, Manga had finally arrived in force and had become one of the hottest trends in the American publishing. Children and young adults in the United States alike can’t seem to get their hands on enough of it.

For those of you who aren’t familiar with it, Manga refers to a style of comic books that can be found in every book store / newspaper stand in Japan. Everyone from students to business men can be seen reading it.

So how does this affect education? According to a report from Matt Ford at Ars Technica, Manga will soon be used to introduce students (and others) to various topics in science and technology – everything from relativity to statistics to biotechnology.

Entitled The Manga Guide, the series of comic books will be drawn in the style of Japanese Manga and each book will focus on a single topic or field. The series is a translation done by No Starch Press and will be distributed by O’Reilly. The first Manga to be published will be entitled The Manga Guide to Statistics.

On a similar note, this reminded me of another article that I came across while I was stuck in my World of Warcraft obsession period. From a report by Iconoculture, Kaplan Publishing has partnered with TokyoPop to bring SAT/ACT prep to Manga. Psy-Comm, Von Van Hunter and other full-length graphic novels in the World of Warcraft Manga series are studded with highlighted words commonly used in the SAT/ACT tests.