The Fully Booked flagship store in Bonifacio High Street played host to a month-long celebration in honor of Philippines-Japan Friendship Month, and they rounded it up with a lecture-discussion on manga and anime. Organized with The Center of East Asian Languages, the talk on iconic manga titles and plotlines was led by graphic artist and manga enthusiast Jaime Laurel.

The lecture-discussion started out by focusing on the main differences in the layout and flow of manga versus western-style comics. The talk then moved on to the major genres and individual subgenres that make up the manga family tree — from shounen to shoujo all the way to josei and seinen. Mr. Laurel displayed a keen interest and a diverse range of tastes in the manga he preferred, and talked about the similarities and differences of the manga he has read as well as that of his audience.

The talk is a good introduction to manga for someone starting out from zero, but for someone like me who was been reading manga for years (and nearly half that time, reading it in its original Japanese), the talk admittedly did not bring anything new to the discussion table.

This conclusion was possibly not helped by the make-up of the audience, as it was an open invitation event and young readers were present, making the discussion of potentially controversial topics unthinkable.

Also, perhaps I was simply weighed down with too many expectations — having attended many similar lectures on the same subject at the university level, so I found this discussion as having barely scratched the surface of a diverse and complicated a topic as manga.

However, I am not saying that the lecture was not good, merely that it was not what I was looking for in a talk about Japanese manga (oh, and that it bothered me that “konnichiwa” was mispelled :D:D:D). I would still encourage newbies to attend, as it is a good way to find new titles to read and new friends to talk manga with.

Fully Booked still has a line-up of events that book lovers and reading enthusiasts could look forward to. Please visit their website or call the Bonifacio High Street flagship store at 858-7000 for more information.