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Comment by angerman | Hacker News Reader

At first animated graphic novel sounded like an anime to me. But that concept looks interesting. I am not so sure if it will actually be better. After all, is not an important part of reading a novel, or graphic novel to be immersed in the story and let ones creativity and visualisation flow to make the story a living experience in ones mind? If this supports that, it would be very great! On the other hand if an animated graphic novel would distract from the this, it would be very sad.

I very much like the old touch that it's given and it contrasts great with the new technology.

In the end, if this concept can lure some kids, who'd rather watch an anime than read, to read more. That would be quite an achievement!

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Graphic novel is actually the "scholarly" term to refer to any kind of comics. You might be thinking of Visual Novels, though, which is a genre mostly prevalent in Japan and thus very similar to Anime and Manga in style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphic_novel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_novel

Thanks for clearing that up. I ment to start with animated graphic novel (fixed now). I didn't even know about Visual novels and the exact meaning of the term graphic novel was also new to me.

When I was a kid we used to read Lucky Luke, Asterix and Obelix and Donald Duck. These days it seems that Magas have taken their spot. There's a pretty large bookstore here: Hugendubel, which provided reading corners; similar to a library, except all books are new. You can often find many kids immersed in Mangas.

To me it's like the following: if you animate a manga you end up with an anime. If you animate a comic you end up with animated cartoon.

But the presented product here is still different. It's like a hybrid of both -- or am I mistaken?

Manga/anime are essentially just cultural designations; they are referring to comics and animated cartoons (respectively) endemic to Japan. Note that "cartoon" here can refer to a long-form animated movie, as well. There are some things that make manga (especially) unique in contrast with comics published elsewhere, however they are predominately stylistic in nature with a dash of difference in publishing and consumption culture.

I actually disagree somewhat with slowpoke; many (including myself) would argue that the term "graphic novel" refers not just to the broad class of all comic books, but to a narrower format. Graphic Novels typically are self-contained works, and are not collected in a series (contrast this with "trade paperbacks" or "collections" that combine several issues of a comic book series into a larger volume or volumes, released serially). Libraries and bookstores however seem to ignore these distinctions and lump any long-format comic under the "graphic novel" designation. /pedantry

From what I've seen of the product in question here (the landing page + the youtube trailer), I wouldn't really consider it a hybrid; I would consider it a graphic novel that has key animated panels to help display motion and setting. The animations aren't completely necessary in the storytelling, but are an added artistic "flavor" if you will.

I actually wouldn't disagree with you on making distinctions. I specifically referred to it as "scholarly" because it's the term that's used to sound more serious. "Comic" sort of carries a negative connotation, it's mostly associated with superhero comics (for comics) or action/comedy aimed at young boys (for manga), and some people don't seem to like this association. So they invented a more serious sounding term so they don't have to call it "comics".

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