The Manga Bible
Siku
Doubleday, January 2008, 218 pp., $12.95, www.doubleday.com
Manga Messiah
Kozumi Shinozawa & Atsuko Ogawa
Tyndale, September 2007, 288 pp., $12.99, www.tyndale.com
If you haven’t noticed, manga (Japanese for comic, and ubiquitous in its homeland) has been becoming more popular by the minute in America during the last few years. Inevitably, publishers see a popular format like this as a gold mine, and a Bible soon is released. These two products—the first covering the whole Bible, and the second illustrating the gospels—actually do a great job distilling the narrative of the Bible into comic form.
Messiah is well illustrated in the classic, whimsical manga fashion, while Bible has a much darker, sketchy style. Bible is printed black and white on newsprint, yet for the same price, Messiah is a much higher quality book, printed in full color on better paper. Messiah is the first in a projected five-book series of Bible manga.
Bible innovatively presents the creation account through Moses telling the story to children shortly after the Exodus. The scriptwriter and illustrator did a great job, though there are a few significant typos. In the afterword, the illustrator talks about Jesus being a “badass” (quotes original). Aside from offending some, this seems to be historically inaccurate.
Both books necessarily take interpretative license, and the result is mixed. However, both encourage readers to go to the original text. Either is a fun entry into the world of the Bible; consider giving one to your kids who are into manga.
