Though I started reading comics and watching series since 7 years old, the very first manga movie I watched was Gundam: Char's Counterattack. It was on video tape and entirely in Japanese with no subtitles.

Unfortunately at that time during 80s, Japanese animation was not that popular in my country Singapore as it is now. There are no movie releases, no VCDs and DVDs. The closest I can get to is mainly through comics and TV.

Manga movies work very much the same way as real life movies. They are still a part of our everyday lives we enjoy watching in different categories like science-fiction, romance, fantasy, comedy and action-packed stuff.

But within each movie - as long as it is done by Japanese with their creative and innoviative mindsets, they contain drama, excitement and suspense you probably have never experienced in other types of movies.

Sometimes you do feel touched, sad and be in tears. Other times, you can be in joy and laugh.

Originally, they are made just for the Japanese themselves based on their desires and characteristics. But their apparent artwork impresses many especially Americans who have been trying hard to imitiate their work but with little success. Through their alliance, their works are distributed to the world in other languages like English, Chinese, Malay etc.

Most movies are about 1 and a half to 2 hour long. They are usually based on the popular TV series.

Besides Gundam, there are Macross: Do You Remember Love? The latter is a completely new story with no relations to TV series. There are also Gundam Wing, Megazone 24,Robotech The Movie, and Robotech Shadow Chronicles whereby the latter two are collaboration of Americans, Koreans and Japanese production.

There are also movies which served as previews and final episodes to the series. Such as Silent Mobius: Prologue and Silent Mobius: Epilogue.

The drawings are done by Kia Asamiya and very impressive. Even though he is a guy, he has a great understanding of women as most of his works involved women as main characters.

When internet was still developing, laser discs, VCDs and DVDs are the main ways to access.

Now it is Bluerays and digital downloads that served as current trends given how rapidly technology and internet has progressed. You can also access through your iphones, ipads, laptops, notebooks and Smart TVs so long as you have internet connection.

Author's Bio: 

If you are a manga fan like me who still struggle to come up with that perfect manga character, go and check out my site on How To Draw Manga Faces.

But should you find drawing by hand to be tedious chore, you might consider automation with software tools like Manga Studio.