Manga fonts

Part 3 (Final) 　Japanese
part1 Manga Translation (Japanese -> English) 


Blue= Kawaii Neko(DMG)

I’m not so much particular about the fonts/lettering, except the basic things;

Stick to the standard size (of course there is some range ±1-2point), you can change it, depends on the situation.
(The volumes of the vocals, the emotion, the space so on.)
To show the volume is loud, you can put the letters full of the balloon - it is nice, but you keep enough space in the balloon, basically.

There are 4 basic fonts we use.

1 Standard
2 Thought (Usually it's thinner than Standard. Like  スタンダード　メモリー or could be italic.
3 Narrations(the voice from nobody)
4 Flashbacks
yes, in English eds, flashbacks where the dialogue is floatig in the air showing it as someone's memory, is generally in italics, though spoken in bubbles, it is usually in normal font, but there is usually a flashback indicator..narration such as "Earlier..." or the picture shows characters who are adults as children etc... So, how we handle it when there is an exception, we'll have to decide.

Thoughts and narrations are always in italic also.

Standard

Thought

Flashbacks

This is one of Japanese standards, so you don’t need to follow. I show this just as an example. As you see, I use 3 types of fonts. One for standard, one for thought and talk(語り), one for memory. I didn’t take any particular font for narration (see “Prologue”).  Usually, memory scenes are indicated by different frame border(Finner than the standard, in my case) and by the font. And of course, depend on the situation, the editor use some special fonts. Such as a voice from a microphone, funny, so on. I'm looking for a diff font for that flashback page :)

As long as it can be nice to read, I don’t care so much what kind of font it would be.

Etc. (Itadaki! Panther) The editor's choice("PyonPyon Magazine", Shogakukan)

Above Soft voice                                        Loud voice(Shout)

Funny

<- Microphone (Moon&Blood)

Add

All the fonts are acceptable - it might be too much to say this - as long as it has a good balance and it can be recognized the difference easily. The role is showing “the difference” to readers. This is utterance, thought/monologues, or memories. Or the voice from nobody. It would be nice if it gives you some extra information with it, of course.  And I realize from my experience, English tends to use many kinds of fonts, and bold, italics, rather than Japanese. It could be the result that they try to show some elements which can’t be shown by the translation. Japanese can show faint nuance without the sound (I mean “real voices”), by the written words, and it would be a few letters. But it might be difficult doing the same thing in English.That is pretty much exactly why we use fonts in English the way we do ^^

What you feel from the font can be different from the culture. So I think it would be good I don’t say many about the fonts, the choice should be done by an English speaker.
Okie dokie, I can handle that.

Actually, I wonder if the font you gave has enough difference from the standard one(the one you chose in this case), but it maybe because I’m not familiar with Alphabet. Interestingly enough, since in English, font use itself is very expressive, especially when used in manga/comics where it can add nuanes to the words, many people are very sensitive to changes in font that might otherwise be unnoticeable. There are actually "font junkies" who make a habit of identifying if it is serif or not, what font family, etc. They're quick to scream out if you mix up a font or if use what they call a bad font or "misuse" a font- for example, Comic sans is hated and fonts like Times New Roman and Arial are generally reserved for emails, typed  academic papers, newspapers, signs, and mobile phone screens etc.

All I’d like to ask is the layout, flow. If it was possible – I mean “not ugly” when English reads it – put them in vertically.

One thing at the end – compare with Shojyo/Syonen manga - like my other works such as M&B and Wedding Peach - Shinku Chitai would have less fonts, colorless I think.

Thank you!

part1 Manga Translation (Japanese → English)
Part2 The "Vertical" Layout of manga
Part3 Manga fonts