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 MangaLife Spotlight: The Manga Bible: It's Pretty Good, Believe It or Not
Written by Barb Lien-Cooper
I first encountered The Manga Bible (published by Zondervan Graphic Novels as opposed to the one published by Doubleday, which I haven't read) at my local library. Part of me laughed at the idea of using manga to get out a religious message. Part of me was absolutely outraged. Using an art form popular with teenagers and children to get them interested in religious thought seemed to me to be the height of exploitation. Let kids be kids, I thought. Let them enjoy their manga without having to be preached at.
But then, I started thinking. My husband was reading and enjoying Buddha, the popular manga series concerning the life of the enlightened one. Park enjoyed it, said he learned a lot, thought that the stories were interesting, and that it was perfectly all right to tell a philosophically based story using manga. So I said to myself that maybe I was being a little intolerant. Buddha shows that an author can write a series concerning a line of religious thought without leaving the audience feeling bored and preached at. Now, I knew right away that The Manga Bible wasn't Buddha, which was an instant classic. But I decided that if The Manga Bible could tell a religious tale in an entertaining way, I'd give it a fair trial.
I've just finished the fourth volume The Manga Bible and frankly, I wouldn't mind reading more. While no instant classic, judged on its own ambitious but modest merits, the series is a bit of a page turner.
As to why it's so interesting, well, here's the thing. It starts at the beginning of the Old Testament and just keeps going from there. It's very "just the facts" storytelling, telling a simple story of a tribe of people who believed in a God who was very evident in their lives. When the tribes of Israel were good, kind, decent, and faithful, their God was good to them. When they were evil and corrupt, all hell broke loose. The Lord their God was a jealous god indeed. By starting at the beginning of the Bible instead of skipping straight to Jesus, as if the Old Testament meant nothing, we get stories that many of us don't know that well. Oh, sure, we all know about Adam and Eve, but the story of Ruth? Deborah, one of the earliest rulers of Israel? Not so much. I've always wanted to catch up on my Old Testament knowledge, as I used to try and read the Bible as a kid, but always stopped after Exodus, as the next three books are books of law instead of interesting tales of prophetic dreams, murder, kidnapping, battles, etc.
It turns out that after Exodus, we get a lot more battles, a lot of corrupt rulers, lots of idol worship, some very sinful people, plagues, famines, near starvation, miracles, people coming back from the dead, etc. In short, heavens to Betsy, these stories are just plain interesting to read. They're especially interesting for me to read because the Old Testament really is the history of a People. I'm sort of a history buff, so I can dig it.
Now, doing a manga based on the Old Testament has its challenges. For instance, the God of the Old Testament has got to be about the most vengeful, demanding God out there (although He does seem to keep His promises to the faithful). A lot of horrible, violent things happen in the series based on doing His good works. Fortunately, the author, Young Shin Lee, knows when to soft pedal and when to explain and when to use humor to lighten situations that are a bit violent in the Bible. The guy does seem to know just about how much youths can handle and how much they can't. The story of Sodom goes by without too much mention of fornication or debauchery, for instance. The story of David and Bathsheba gets nary a mention, which is a little deceptive, but understandable, as the story concerns one of the worst things an otherwise wise king could do: sending a man on what was essentially a suicide mission in order to snag his wife. David's sort of one of the big "good guys" of the Manga Bible, so trying to explain how a man of god can also be a man with base wants and needs might be too much of a stretch for younger readers.
Young Shin Lee also seems to instinctively grasp that no youth is going to read a boring manga series, no matter how religiously inclined the kid might be. Knowing that, the author keeps the work moving fast and he keeps the tone as light as possible when he can. I think this is the first religiously based comic I've laughed out loud at NOT because it's bad but because it's actually pretty witty. Using manga techniques such as asides, artist interruptions and commentary, pop culture references (the Ark of the Covenant gets the Indiana Jones treatment, for instance), cartoony art that gets even cartoonier as the humor increases, etc., The Manga Bible seems to understand that a story goes faster and is better loved if it's told with good humor.
As a child that was raised Lutheran, I was exposed to some truly awful Christian comics. They were poorly written affairs with bad dialog and no sense of humor, pacing, and no knowledge of what youths like to read whatsoever. The comics preached and left the reader feeling depressed. Every so often, such as in the case with the comic book adaptation of Hal Lindsey's hallucinogenic, paranoid apocalyptic bestseller of the 1970s, The Late, Great Planet Earth, they could even traumatize.
So far, the Manga Bible doesn't do any of that. Instead, it tells a complicated story as simply and as optimistically as possible and with as little preaching as a religious comic can get away with. It didn't have that slimy feeling that usually comes when a religion starts using a form of entertainment for propaganda purposes, which already puts it miles ahead of most Christian forms of "entertainment." As a side note, if you don't know what I mean, I challenge you to watch Trinity Broadcasting Network's Saturday morning line up for kids. The shows are probably the ugliest, least entertaining, least professional things you're going to see this side of the worst of public access television. I can't watch more than five minutes worth without feeling sick and sad inside for the poor Christian kids who are forced to watch that crap instead of, say, even something as half-baked but entertaining as The Emperor's New School. Telling kids that good kids' entertainment like Monsters Inc. is "worldly" because Disney is a gay tolerant company, then doing a bait and switch like showing a poorly animated cartoon about insects building a mini-ark along side of Noah: now that's what I mean by the slime of religion trying to use entertainment to brainwash impressionable youth.
God only knows that I have nothing against Christianity, but in the main, it shouldn't try and be in the entertainment business, as there are too many restrictions on the imagination to tell really entertaining stories. They don't grow many C.S. Lewis types over in Christianityland, even though he's often touted by some religious types as Christianity's answer to J. K. Rowling or something.
But if a manga series can tell a religious story and still keep the audience entertained and amused, that's a different story, I think. The difference is that The Manga Bible seems to understand that if it doesn't entertain first and foremost that it won't get through to its audience. If only this trend would catch on.
A couple of quick notes to end this article.
Note 1: The art isn't exactly manga, although it's ten times more manga than most American comics that try and exploit the manga style without understanding it at all. I mean, heck, at least the artist, Jung Sun Hwang, understands the strategic value of speedlines! I kind of like it. Maybe it's just because it's the first manga I've seen featuring guys with beards!
Note 2: Technically, being originally a product of Korea, the real title should be The Manhwa Bible, but there's more name-recognition with Manga Bible.
Conclusion: If you're interested in the Old Testament but got stuck after Exodus like I did, this is an interesting series. It's sort of the Cliff Notes version of the Old Testament, but don't worry. There's no quiz afterwards. If you come from a Judeo-Christian background, you'd probably like it more than if you didn't or if you've been hurt or angered by religion, fallen away, or just plain don't believe or believe in another religion (which are all valid ways to feel and be). If you are the type of person who thinks that religion and entertainment shouldn't EVER mix, this type of series isn't for you. Use your own judgment and discretion, especially when comes to getting this work for very young readers. The Old Testament has a lot of murders and bloodshed, after all, no matter how much it gets downplayed.
All I can tell you is that I liked this series so far, in spite of myself. Take that as you will.
However, I will tell you that, whether you're interested in Biblical history or not, if you were stuck on a desert island with this series and nothing else to read, you'd read it (probably more than once) and you'd thank whoever you thank about such things that you had something this appealing with you.
Although you’d probably also think, "O Lord, couldn't you have left me on a desert island with the complete run of FullMetal Alchemist instead?"
Park: "So I know it's a feature article and not a review, but what grade would you give it?"
Barb: "What, are you crazy? It's the BIBLE! I'M not gonna GRADE this! God will SMITE me! When the children mocked Elisha, God sent BEARS to EAT them!"
MangaLife Grade: Not Applicable.
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