Vietnamese comics

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Viet comics (Vietnamese: Truyện tranh Việt), also known as mạn họa (Sino-Vietnamese for manhua, Chinese: 漫畫), are comics or graphic novels originating from Vietnam. The term Viet comics was firstly introduced by Floral Age Bimonthly (Bán nguyệt san Tuổi Hoa) magazine in 1960 in Saigon.^[1]

Before the 1990s, mạn họa were not used for entertaining purposes. Instead, due to long-standing influence of Chinese Confucianism, Vietnamese comics at the time often had educational contents with lessons about morality. This, however, had prevented them from reaching a broad readership due to storylines remaining unchanged.^[2]

In 1992, Kim Đồng Publishing House printed the first Japanese manga in Vietnam: Doraemon. It became a phenomenon and was quickly followed by other Japanese mangas, such as Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball. And with that, the Vietnamese comics were defeated right at their doorstep. It was not until 2002, when Thần đồng Đất Việt was published, that a truyện tranh managed to gain popularity.