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Paper short abstract

This paper focuses on fukidashi in recent manga and examines how narrative conventions relative to balloon shapes are evolving. Through various case studies, it intends to show how fukidashi jump between or combine iconic and symbolic qualities, and demonstrate an ambiguous materiality.

Paper long abstract

This paper will focus on fukidashi (speech balloons) in recent manga, mainly in genres with a majority of female readers, and show some of the ways narrative conventions relative to balloon shapes are in constant evolution. The basic function of manga fukidashi is generally understood to be carriers for written words, in which the space delimited by the outline of the balloon initially appears as a two-dimensional space analogous to that of the page. In many cases, though, fukidashi prove to be much more versatile and show a fluid dimensionality.

Much has been written in comics and manga studies (Forceville, Cohn, Natsume, Groensteen) about the expressive power of the contour lines of speech balloons and about some well-established conventions such as the distinction between speech balloons and thought balloons, which are part of the syntax of manga. What hasn’t been examined in as much detail is the relationship between fukidashi and the diegetic space created by the drawings. Many conventional uses of fukidashi that have appeared in the last decades challenge the neat dichotomy between a two-dimensional symbolic space inside the fukidashi and a three-dimensional space in the panels.

This paper will examine particular instances of fukidashi in recent manga that demonstrate the porous boundaries and paradoxical dimensionality of fukidashi. One example relates to fukidashi treated as substitutes for the characters’ faces, carrying conventional signs (keiyu) such as blushing, sweat drops or bulging veins. Among other conventions that will be discussed are the stabbing fukidashi that metaphorically show characters being hurt by someone else’s words. Through various case studies, this paper intends to show how fukidashi are an evolving and complex tool in manga syntax that constantly renegotiates the readers’ understanding of space, by jumping between or combining iconic and symbolic qualities.