Manga vs manhwa vs manhua: the differences
Manga is Japanese, manhwa is Korean and manhua is Chinese. How they differ in reading direction, format and color, and what that means for translating.
Manga is the word for comics from Japan, manhwa is the word for comics from Korea and manhua is the word for comics from China. They are the same word, written with the same Chinese characters, said in three languages. The practical differences are the reading direction, the page format and whether the art is in color.
The short comparison
- Manga (Japan): usually read from right to left, usually black and white, usually laid out as pages that are published in magazines and then collected into volumes.
- Manhwa (Korea): read from left to right, and today mostly published as webtoons, which are long vertical strips in full color made to be scrolled on a phone.
- Manhua (China): most current titles read from left to right, and many are published as full-color vertical-scroll webcomics. Older print editions can follow other directions, so check the series.
Where the words come from
The Chinese characters 漫畫 mean roughly comic pictures. Japanese reads them as manga, Korean as manhwa and Mandarin Chinese as manhua. Outside Asia, people often use manga as a general word for Japanese-style comics, and some readers use it for all three. In this article, each word means comics from its own country.
Reading direction
Japanese manga is read from the right side of the page to the left, and the panels and bubbles inside a page follow the same order. Manhwa and most manhua read left to right, like English. A translator that works bubble by bubble does not need you to reverse anything, but the page order still matters: always send the first page first.
Page versus vertical strip
Print manga is made of pages with a fixed size. Webtoon-style manhwa and manhua are made of one very tall image per episode, or a few tall images, with panels separated by gaps. Tall strips raise a practical issue for translation tools, because very large images can break upload limits. RuneManga accepts pages up to 20 MB each and asks you to split a strip at a gap between panels if an upload is refused.
Color
Manga is traditionally printed in black and white, with screentone for shading, and only some pages or special editions are in color. Webtoons are usually colored from the start. That decides which mode you need. A black-and-white page can be translated, and a colored page should be translated without changing its colors. Colorizing black-and-white manga automatically is a separate feature that is still in development at RuneManga.
What changes when you translate each one
- Manga: vertical Japanese lettering inside bubbles, furigana and sound effects drawn into the art. Japanese is the language RuneManga reads best today.
- Manhwa: Hangul lettering that often sits directly on the art with no bubble. Text outside bubbles is not translated yet, and Korean recognition is still improving.
- Manhua: Chinese characters with no spaces between words, names that need consistent spelling and fixed terms in fantasy series. Chinese recognition is still improving.
How to tell them apart at a glance
- Script: Japanese mixes kana with kanji, Korean uses Hangul, and Chinese uses only Chinese characters.
- Shape: a page that is a fixed rectangle points to print manga, while one very tall image points to a webtoon.
- Color: black-and-white pages with screentone are almost always manga, and full-color strips are usually manhwa or manhua.
- Direction: if the story starts at what you would call the back of the book, it is probably Japanese manga.
Use RuneManga only on pages you have the right to process, such as your own work, licensed work or material you may read for personal use.
Questions
Is a webtoon the same as manhwa?
Not exactly. A webtoon is a format: a comic made to be scrolled vertically. Most webtoons today come from Korea and are manhwa, but the format is also used for Chinese and Japanese series. Webtoon is also the name of a well-known publishing platform.
Which one reads right to left?
Japanese manga does. Manhwa reads left to right, and most manhua do as well.
What is the difference between manhua and donghua?
Manhua are comics. Donghua is the Chinese word for animation, much as anime is the Japanese word for animation.
Can the same tool translate all three?
Yes. RuneManga reads Japanese, Korean and Chinese and uses the same Translate mode for each. Recognition quality differs by language.