The Philippines I think is in a very unique position as far as manga goes. On one hand, we're located in Southeast Asia and it's significantly closer to Japan compared to any Western nation. And as far as colonization goes, Japan did invade the Philippines during World War II although they were eventually driven off. One would think that a rich manga culture would develop here such as what happened with other Southeast Asian countries like Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Indonesia, or even Singapore. But America's influence was pervasive and so many Filipinos grew up reading Marvel and DC Comics, or even European comics like Tin-Tin and Asterix.

I was still in grade school when I first discovered manga back in the early 90's. Dragonball Z was popular at the time and that kind of manga was available at certain stores if you knew where to look. It came with one hurdle though: it was in Chinese. Now the lingua franca in the Philippines was Pilipino and English. We also have a couple of immigrants from nations like China, the US, and currently Korea. While I'm one of the scions of Chinese immigrants, I'm the first one to admit that I lack comprehension skills when it comes to Chinese. But there it was, my first doze of manga in a language I could, at best, partially understand. Still, the stories and the artwork interested me and since this is Dragonball we're talking about, I could more or less make sense of the plot. Eventually, more manga would make its way to China Town and comic stores owned by Chinese businessmen. At worse, a trip to Hong Kong was only two hours away so Christmas vacation was something I always looked forward to.

And then the US manga phenomenon came as Viz started importing select titles, Dark Horse was doing original manga years ahead of Tokyopop, and well, Tokyopop was still known as MixxZine. There were many experimental movements at the time such as the monthly anthology format, actually not flipping the artwork, and semi-successful attempts at translations. While I wouldn't call it the golden age of English manga, it was easily the first time Filipino readers got to read manga in which they didn't need a Chinese-English dictionary beside them. At the same time, anime/manga specialty stores were popping up that were selling Chinese-translated manga and sometimes, even authentic Japanese ones. Perhaps what was interesting that some people, even the non-Chinese ones, preferred the Chinese translations to the English translations simply because the former was significantly cheaper (around 1/5th the price of American-produced manga).

Eventually though, Tokyopop would pioneer the smaller but cheaper manga format. This combined with the fact that local bookstores started stocking not just manga in their shelves but comics in general started making US-imported manga viable and lucrative. Of course at the same time, there were interesting developments happening in the nation: in 1999, the first anime-influenced comic anthology, Culture Crash, made its debut. A year later, the Philippines would have its first anime convention and one of its special guests was the manga creator of Fushigi Yuugi, Yuu Watase. A few years down the line, we'd even have our own comic convention called Komikon. There was even a local publisher who got the rights to serialize manga such as Slam Dunk.

That's not to say all was well in the local manga scene. For a time, scanlations--manga scanned and translated by fans--were making its way into magazine racks as someone started printing them out and selling them. As far as importing manga from the US goes, not all titles have international rights and just as The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen: Black Dossier is having copyright issues with exportation outside the US, some manga suffered the same fate.

Overall though, 2007 was promising for manga in the Philippines. First, a local comic anthology/magazine drawn in the vein of anime and manga was released last year. Second, there are some notable shops that have sprung up in the Philippines including an authentic Japanese manga cafe complete with girls in maid outfits. Third, aside from importing US manga titles, the local bookstores have begun importing cheaper English-translated titles from Singapore, specifically Chuang Yi, not only giving consumers more variety but a cheaper alternative. It's not a perfect situation for manga fans but the Philippines is an interesting place to be as it's easily a country where East meets West.

Charles Tan