What's good for an 11-year old?

pops

My son is really into comics and drawing etc. and wants to be a cartoonist. I would like to introduce him to different kinds of anime & manga, but haven't a clue where to start. He's 11 and I would rather not have anything with a lot of violence.
Any advice welcome.

cherryghost

pops wrote: »

My son is really into comics and drawing etc. and wants to be a cartoonist. I would like to introduce him to different kinds of anime & manga, but haven't a clue where to start. He's 11 and I would rather not have anything with a lot of violence.
Any advice welcome.

i assume he digs pokémon/yu-gi-oh at some point? Also, considering the age, a dubbed anime rather than a subbed anime would probably better for him... now... to find a good dubbed anime :pac:

Burkie.EXE

You could try One Piece. As much as I hate 4kids, they do dubs with just about no violence whatsoever.

Ginja Ninja

yugioh,pokemon,digimon,card captors,Ultimate muscle[violence as wrestling in a fake comedy kind of way]

there are loads more,but I know the ones above are really popular with that age group[I'm assuming he's your typical 11 year old kid]

cherryghost

azumanga daioh perhaps? the dub wasnt too bad. plus you can learn a bit of the japanese culture as you watch too

fitz0

Does he watch anime already? What sort of stuff does he watch normally?

You could try Avatar:The Last Airbender. Its a hybrid of anime and western animation. Some violence but not much. It was made as a kids cartoon so it should be appropriate.

Karl Hungus

Suprised nobody said it yet, but just about any of the Studio Ghibli films should be perfectly suitable, bar maybe Princess Mononoke which is a bit violent and Only Yesterday which would probably be a bit too adult in it's themes and not really be of interest to a child.

Spirited Away and Castle In The Sky would be wonderfully exciting fantasy adventures that are vividly and magnificently animated, so should really capture the imagination of your son.

ztoical

If he wants to get into drawing comics or become an animator your better off picking up some comics for him rather then focusing on animated tv shows and films...not that those aren't good too but it's better for him to have a printed book in his hand that he can really study and look at for ages then looking at the tv screen.

Highly rec One Piece as it's aimed at just that age group. The drawing style has great energy to it and while yes it's about pirates the violence is more over the top cartoon style and it's black and white so no strong graphic blood/gore. naruto is also very popular one...my friends 10 year old adores the series. There are some good sport themed comics like Hikaru no Go or The Prince of Tennis. Drop in to one of the larger bookstores or Sub City or Forbidden Planet and have a look through some of the books...you want to look for shounen manga which are comics aimed at boys between 10 to 18 - some are more clearly marked as shounen then others. Whats nice about most of the comic series is that there are a good number of volumes so your son can start collecting the ones he likes and makes it easier for you to pick the next one up....get him to pick out a couple of volumes 1's and see which he likes and just go from there. Don't dismiss then none Japanese comics out there - while it can be hard for parents to find age suitable comics in some of the american mainstream work out there there are some great books out such as classic titles like Tintin and Asterix, often overlooked in this country for some reason but they are great examples of good Franco/belgian comics. And not forgetting some of the great Irish stuff thats out there like the Irish language graphic novel series from Cló Mhaigh Eo with artwork by artists from the Cartoon Saloon who recently put out an oscar nominated animated feature film.

What ever you do please don't buy any of those "how to draw manga" books. They don't help with drawing skills and if it was something he was looking into following as a career further down the line he'd find himself having to undo lots of bad habits those books teach. Where in the country are you based? there are some comic events aimed at kids and teens that take place through out the year. We had a number of workshops for kids at 24 hour comics day last year including a manga artist from Japan running a workshop for kids and teens and we had the same artist do the workshops in a couple of Libraries as well. Don't know what our program for this years event in October will be as we're just at the planning stages now but at the very least we encourage young kids to come and talk to the artists drawing through out the day. There is also the 2D festival coming up in June in Derry that always has several workshops aimed at kids and fighting words, the writing center in Dublin, ran a graphic novel workshop for kids last summer.

JJ

From Studio Ghibli, it doesn't get more innocent than My Neighbor Totoro but kids of all ages can enjoy it I think. At 11, he may be old enough for Grave of the Fireflies but it is dark and depressing.

L31mr0d

Avoid Naruto, Bleach and DBZ.

Naruto especially is insidious in the themes it deals with. If you where to glance at an episode for 10 minutes you'd think it was harmless, but some of the stuff was even chilling for me to watch (i.e. Itachis Tsukuyomi ability using his Mangekyo Sharingan technique)

Oh yeah and this is DBZ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L-Z9OJaIPQ

Zeouterlimits

L31mr0d wrote: »

Oh yeah and this is DBZ

That's actually the old, original DragonBall, not DBZ iirc (there is a difference in the level of violent content).

The Ghibli suggestions, Chi's Sweet Home
(bit old for it), CardCaptors (perfect imo) are all good choices.

Bleach & Naruto are probably a bit mature, 13/14 is a better age for those.

L31mr0d

Zeouterlimits wrote: »

That's actually the old, original DragonBall, not DBZ iirc (there is a difference in the level of violent content).

Source? Freiza rips Nails arm off and Cell drains Piccolos arm leading him to have to rip it off again to regenerate it.

I suppose this is less violent

randomchild

I always thought dragon ball was a lot more "kid friendly" than DBZ. Although their is more nudity and such if I remember right.

Zeouterlimits

L31mr0d wrote: »

Source? Freiza rips Nails arm off and Cell drains Piccolos arm leading him to have to rip it off again to regenerate it.

Ah I did not realise it happened with Cell around.
I was referring to the 23rd Tenka'ichi Budôkai match between Goku & Piccolo.

pops

Thanks for the replies. I should have mentioned that I was hoping to get some comics for him to read rather than animations to watch. He's into Calvin & Hobbes and has Gulliver's Travels animated by Chris Riddle. He's not into computer games and as I said prefers to read or draw comics.
The comic workshop sounds great, however we are based in Galway but I will keep an eye out for anything coming up in the west.

ztoical

pops wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I should have mentioned that I was hoping to get some comics for him to read rather than animations to watch. He's into Calvin & Hobbes and has Gulliver's Travels animated by Chris Riddle. He's not into computer games and as I said prefers to read or draw comics.
The comic workshop sounds great, however we are based in Galway but I will keep an eye out for anything coming up in the west.

Subcity have a store in Galway and there have been a few comic related events on in that end of the country. They will be taking part in the Irish Free Comic day which is on in May and there will be a selection of comics given away for free at the store with a focus on Irish made comics....if you check the upcoming events thread in the comic forum there is more information.

We do try and focus on younger comic book fans for Irish 24 hour comics day esp those who want to get into drawing their own comics and while it's on in Dublin it's not till October so there is time to plan a trip up for the day

If he is enjoying Calvin and Hobbes I would certainly see if he enjoys Tintin...there is also Peanuts [ie Charlie Brown] which some over look due to it's age but they are still wonderfully comics. Spy vs Spy is also very good and he can move on from there as he get's older to work by the likes of Will Eisner and Jeff Smith's wonderful "Bone".

hitlersson666

Grave of the fireflys its such a beautiful and yet heartbreaking movie

pops

Great - thanks for that info. Will check out Subcity and Irish Free comic day.

state_of_you

Dennou Coil - Virtual pets but I don't know if it's been dubbed.
Lucky Star - Close friends clowning around
Boku no Pico - More friends having fun
There are also plenty of Pokemon movies that never received widespread publicity, any of them should be fine.