Summary of YoshihiroTogashis special Manga NAME skill

Chaoan Zhang
Beijing university of Civil engineering and architecture
Auburn university
Abstract
This essay is to those who are interested in the Manga and want to know more about the
NAME.
[Hunter X Hunter] written by Yoshihiro Togashi can be said to be the one of the most
interesting teenage Manga in this world until now. One of the reasons why it is so interesting is
that Togashis special NAME skill.
Manga was come from movie and in someway same as movie, both belong to montage art,
which tells the story by camera language. It can be said that the NAME is the soul of Manga. A
Manga has no great lens arrangement, No matter how good the story is, it will be nothing. And
even if the story is some how boring, if the lens is very smooth, it can also be regraded as a nice
Manga.
In Manga, NAME is important than story. Without NAME there will be no Manga in this world.
And that is accepted.
Key wordsManga, NAME skill, Yoshihiro Togashi, Hunter X Hunter, information content.
Introduction:
Manga, can be regarded as one of the most influential cultural products in Japan.Every
moment, countless young people all over the world are immersed in the world of Manga story ,
enjoy the happiness it brings to them, and temporarily forget the the troubles in reality. They are
concerned about the future of the characters in Manga story, as if those characters are not just
from virtual world, but a friend of them in the real world; they enjoy the fresh feeling which
adventure in story brings to them and feeling they are in the midst of story too.
At the very beginning, Manga was very puerile, but under the joint efforts of a few of great
cartoonist, this art has developed rapidly in past decades, grown up and become a very complex
and profound subject. Like many other arts, Manga is a field for genius. there are four of people
whose contribution is the largest, Among the people who have made great contributions to the
development of Manga skill. People called them best four, and their names are - Osamu Tezuka,
Akira Toriyama, Yoshihiro Togashi, and Rumiko Takahashi.
(if you are interested, search their name on web, and you will find how famous how rich they are.
Sadly one of them: the father of manga - Osamu Tezuka is dead )
Yoshihiro togashi is a pitiful man, he spent a lot of his time, lasted more than 20 years, made
Manga seriously, but only because occasionally several times he suspended serialized or paid the
draft due to the pain from occupational disease, a lot of people started calling him a lazy genius.
I had draw from at least five books of [Hunter X Hunter]s NAME, and I have confidence that
I understand his production better more than other readers. I can feel his earnest from his NAME,
the NAME is so fine and ingenious and it only can be drawn by consumig a lot of time, it can not
be drawn by a lazy guy.

Now, I will quote some substance form [Hunter X Hunter] to discuss the special and unique
NAME skill by Yoshihiro Togashi in detail.
I will discuss Mainly from two aspects: information content & composition
1.Concentration of information content
Information content, simply means how many contents to show in each page. Its a very
important part we should pay attention to in making Manga. Different story types, different Serial
places, color or black and white, The most suitable amount of information are all very different.
But overall, Manga needs more engaging, readers spend money buying a Manga, of course they
hope which has more content can be obtained and give a longer time for enjoy, that is the
buyers usual thought.
But the paper size is limited, too much content squeezed in one page will made the picture
too clutter, One of the common problems in Manga is there are too many frames in one page. A
lot of old Manga production both caused reader's reading experience not very smooth by this
reason. In order to avoid this problem, however, it would be easy to make another mistake: less
frames in one page cause information contents very thin, in a flash, one episode is over, and story
length can be showed in one episode has be limited at the same time.
1.1. Breach the limit from frame [breach frame method]
In order to solve this information contents controls problem, master Yoshihiro has used a
frame breach technique and used it well. It can be said without exaggeration that he used a piece
of paper just like it is two pieces of paper.
Lets see figure - 1, this is when our major character - Gon Freecss first came out in the
story.

Figure - 1

For the debut of the characters, it is best to have a close-up of body to show its overall
feeling, but if the close-up of body is too big, it will be a kind waste of space, and too small, it will
have no impact. Yoshihiro used breach frame method to make full body feature coverage in the
unimportant part of the picture, to maximum and reasonable use the space resources, creating a
sense of hierarchy at the same time, making the picture more stereo feeling.
This NAME skill seems simple, but it is not easy to use, it requires a very good space layout
ability. This figure was created in 1997, after that each stage of character in this Manga has used
this skill to show the whole body feature. This method can be said as one of the Yoshihiros
favorite. after that, many younger cartoonists are influenced by this skill, at least in the debut of
characters to use one time. But in china, I rarely see people using this technique, because of lazy I
guess.
This skill has two Evolution versions.
A: to smart use characters bod as a frame line, this can be said a bold new innovation by
Yoshihiro, and its one of his great invention. It makes the whole body feature connect between
the two frames more smoothly and give it a new attribution. Lets see figure - 2.

Figure - 2 , debut of Hosika

B: To division character and background through breach frame method, in this way to made
a sense of distance, bring picture a more stereo feeling, emphasize the character which out of the
frame and also made reader feel more close to the reader, increase the sense of substitution.
Lets see figure three.

Figure - 3 , Hosika in the woods

1.2. Use of the tiny transverse main frame [TTMF]

Before we talk about tiny transverse main frame[MF], we have to talk about the main frame.
The Main frame is a basic element to make Manga in modern times. If we have no main frame in
our Manga, what we make is not Manga at all! Then what is a main frame?
Simply, it is the largest frame in on page, which had the most important content in it.
Basically in nowadays Manga, each page has a key point that needs to be performed, which tells
the reader that the most critical content, and is compared with the other secondary content(in
other frames), to be emphasized.
The rhythm of Manga story, is created by the use of main frames.
However, the slather of main frames is some kind a luxury behavior for the Manga, which
story has a very compact rhythm, if we have a frame distinct larger then other frames in every
page, We cannot guarantee that the other frames in this page is large enough to hold all the
other contents that we want to put on this page, that may caused one page became two page,
and break the overall paging arrangement in this whole episode. Serialized (especially the Serial
on magazine) usually have strict rules on the number of pages, so this problem may lead us to
have not enough page to finish all story that we prepare for one episode.
Before, in order to avoid this terrible problem, authors had to cut off part of the story
contents, which might have forced them to get rid of some Wonderful contents.
That is to say, authors always need to use main frames to perform the key information, but
they usual did not have enough space resources to use the main frames.
The great master of Manga Yoshihiro Togashi invented a very simple and ingenious method
to solve this problem! And that is to use a kind of main frame, which Length across left to right
But width is short, be called tiny transverse main frame, to perform the Key information.
Example in figure four

Figure - 4 recalled of Gons father

The reason we call it tiny is that it actual Area is not very large, do not need a lot of space
recourse, but because its Great span, it play a same function as a main frame: Get the greatest
degree of prominence in one page.
This kind of main frame had a very high rate of usage in [Hunter X Hunter], as if it had no
normal main frame in one page, it will had a TTMF in this page. As we can say, TTMF is The
greatest hero to made [Hunter X Hunter]s story looks plump!
Plenty use of TTMF is the most obviously and most not obviously Yoshihiro Togashis special
NAME skill. Not obviously is because a lot of authors didnt even has the sense to use main frame,
that is a bad habit, may cause the story express ambiguous and the key point can not get
attention from reader, which made a story boring.
Because of TTMF s unique size, it especially good at close-up. If your content in one page is
the intermediate and long distance Integrated information(Integrated information is mean we
have more then two people in one frame), just use normal main frame, Yoshihiro Togashi operate
as this way too. But if its close-up, use TTMF is a better choice, no matter close or super close,
one person or 2~3 people, TTMF is the best choice, because its size is very suit for put in a
close-up, and put in dialog boxes at the same time.
Next, there is some example, as we can see in the picture, this kind of frame is not only to
express the key information but also account the space-relationship between two characters.

Figure - 5 6 7 :KILLUA and his older brother

2.Composition
The same content use different methods to show can gave readers totally different
expression, novice often cans give readers what they want to express because of their no
impacts composition, and lost their readers by let themfeeling boring.
Yoshihiro Togashi is famous as his great wallop composition. So specifically, what kind of skill
had he use to increase the performance of the picture? I found, its not irregular, there are only
four ways that to increase pictures expressive, Yoshihiro Togashi is the only person who can
perfectly combine those four skills, and His method is also very suitable for people to learn.
Remember to use and practice hardly, make very expressive picture is not impossible.
2.1. Incline
Incline refers to tilt the screen(contents that in the frame), it looks very easy, everybody
knows how to use it, and everybody abuses it.
This is a skill people get from nature. Because of the structure of our body, our head will be
tilted forward slightly when we turn, so the contents we see will be inclined. However, because
we are like that since we were born, so most of people will not pay attention to that in whole life.
Manga are an art still, Sometimes we need to made our composition have very sporty
performance, but it is not possible to make the scene really move like a movie. Great artist is
always able to find what others had not found, so we have a genius named dakira toriyama found
a method to made s still picture sporty by Incline it, and have Yoshihiro Togashi play this skill
extreme in [Hunter X Hunter].
Simply, incline can give us a illusion that the screen is moving. But there are a lot of authors
who do not know the principle and use incline blandly, use it when the screen should still, and
misleading the readers.
The most intelligent of Master Togashi is he never abuses this skill, he only uses it when the
screen should move, And he prefers to put the camera on the location that is very close to the
ground, the advantage is, put the distance which most need to be focused by eyes on the
diagonal when looking-up, extend the distance, and use space resources on best way. So: Incline
is very suitable to be used with looking-up.
Some example:

Figure - 8 9 from [Hunter X Hunter] book 2.

2.2. Blur method

Another famous NAME skill developed by Yoshihiro Togashi! [Hunter X Hunter] can be said
as the best Manga on blur method using. Because almost all of the fast movement in this Manga
was blurred, which made people feel the characters were really moving!
This skill has not received much attention before, for unknown reasons, perhaps because it
looks too difficult to use and is trouble. But in fact, blur is not trouble, sometimes it can also
make the picture more simple.
Example:

Figure - 10 KILLUA killed two passer-by

Summary:
Thanks for your reading. Although those contents may somehow a torture of people who
are not interested in Manga, I hope you can trust me : All I write above is the original insights that
I get by spending hundreds of my hours, they have never appeared on the internet. And I can
promise: those contents are full of practical value, And it is also good for Chinese Cartoonist
whose professional quality have short slab in some position. The Explosive growth of Chinese
Anime market had caused too many people choice to become a Cartoonist blindly, those people
knew far from enough about NAME that a Cartoonist should knew, and that is the most
important reason why their works are lack of coherence and not comfortable to read in some
where.
Reference:
Figure - 1 to 10 all from
[Hunter X Hunter] 1997 by Yoshihiro Togashi, First published in Japan in 1997 by SHUEISHA
INC, Tokyo.
(It is clearly wriiten for I can understand your writing. Howevr, this is not an essay, but only an
introduction of a kind of cartoon. It is not a report of research, for it is not your own invention. It

is not a book report, for you dont have debate on a book or on an idea. Besides, your writing
skills need improving, for we can see too many grammar mistakes. )