Manga means "whimsical pictures" — named by Hokusai, the artist behind The Great Wave, for his freewheeling sketch collections in 1814.
A style of Japanese comic books and graphic novels, typically featuring distinctive artistic conventions and serialized storytelling. The term covers a vast range of genres and demographics.
From Japanese 漫画 (manga), coined by the artist Katsushika Hokusai around 1814, combining 漫 (man, 'whimsical, involuntary, rambling') and 画 (ga, 'picture, drawing'). Literally 'whimsical pictures' or 'pictures that flow freely.' Key roots: 漫 (man) (Japanese/Chinese: "whimsical, rambling, involuntary, flowing"), 画 (ga) (Japanese/Chinese: "picture, drawing, stroke").
The word "manga" was popularized by Katsushika Hokusai — the same artist who created The Great Wave off Kanagawa, one of the most reproduced images in art history. His Hokusai Manga (1814) was not a comic book in the modern sense but a collection of sketches of everything from people to ghosts to landscapes, intended as drawing manuals for students. Hokusai chose the name to mean "pictures drawn at whim," emphasizing their spontaneous, unstructured nature — ironic given that modern manga is one of the most