# Manga — style guide for coding agents

> Generated from the Aesthetary record for **Manga**.
> Research: **Partly sourced** · Build guidance: 28 rules recorded.
> 28 sources attached.

## How to use this

Paste this file into your agent as context before asking it to design or build something in this visual language. It states what is established, what is our interpretation, and what nobody has established. Treat all three differently.

**The most important section is "Not researched yet".** Its purpose is to stop you and your agent inventing rules that sound right and are not recorded anywhere.

## What this language is

Japanese serial comics grammar: right-to-left panels sized for pacing, monochrome line art, and tone sheets standing in for colour.

**Defining:** Screentone shading, speed lines, panel-based sectioning, expressive character art

**Recognise it by:** A page divided into panels of deliberately unequal size and shape, read from the upper right leftward and then down, with tonal shading supplied by screentone, though seinen and gekiga use crosshatching freely alongside it, and motion rendered as directional speed lines. The diagnostic property is the combination of irregular panel proportion with right-to-left order: irregular panels alone occur throughout Western comics, and screentone alone is now a widely borrowed texture. Reading direction derives from tategaki, the traditional vertical Japanese writing order.

**Family:** Rooted Traditions
**Era:** contemporary
**Native medium:** print_serial

**Scope:** The page grammar of Japanese commercial story manga published as print serials (magazine anthologies, then collected tankōbon): Japanese Visual Language as it appears in manga, with dialects developing since Tezuka, panel techniques pioneered in the 1960s and screentone used from the 1950s. Pre-war cartoon magazines such as Tokyo Puck (colour-illustrated, read in columns) are precursors rather than instances. 'Post-war', 'monochrome' and the exclusion of vertical-scroll colour formats are Aesthetary's boundary.

## What it is arguing

The page is a time-control device. Panel size, shape and sequence set the pace at which a reader moves, so composition is a matter of duration rather than of arrangement.

## What it is not

Commonly confused with these. Getting the difference right matters more than getting the surface right:

- Arcade
- Pop Art

**What separates this language:** Panels and reading order determine page structure

_This is the record's own distinguishing line, not a comparison against any one neighbour. Where a per-neighbour difference is recorded it appears beside that name above; where it is absent, nobody has written it._

## Established rules

Grouped by what kind of claim each is. A requirement of the language and our own interpretation are not interchangeable.

**How to read each rule.** Every rule states two separate things, and neither stands in for the other:

- **Kind of claim** (the heading): Necessary · our ranking · Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed · No source attached · Documented · Source not yet verified · Web translation · Documented · Source attached · Seen in the work.
- **Evidence** (how it is established): Graded by our research brief · No source attached (`DOCUMENTED`) · From our catalogue entry (`SUPPORTED`) · Our reading (`CURATORIAL`) · Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`) · No grade recorded (no grade in the record). Where a claim has its own canonical label, the Evidence line gives that label instead of the grade.
- **Product area**: which of the twelve areas the rule belongs to (Layout, Typography, Color, Imagery, Surface, Interface, Motion, Motif, Technique, Form, Hierarchy, Density), mapped from its raw area label in bold. "Context" means the rule is about the Aesthetic (its name, origin, lineage) rather than a part of the design. "Not mapped" means the raw area has no single area yet.
- The code in brackets is the `grade` field at `implementationConstraints.tokenRules.value.rules[].provenance.grade` in https://aesthetary.com/data/manga.json. "From our catalogue entry" means: Stated in Aesthetary’s existing catalogue entry. An outside source is named only where one is linked to the claim.

### Necessary · our ranking

_Remove it and it is not this._

- **reading_order** — Panel order is fixed by the binding direction and cannot be mirrored without inverting every sequence built on it. In right-bound Japanese publishing that order runs right to left and top to bottom, and panel, balloon and page turn all follow it.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Layout
- **layout** — Panels of deliberately unequal size and shape. Size controls pacing.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Layout
- **image_treatment** — Tone is a screened field with cut edges — a halftone structure specified by frequency and density — rather than an unscreened continuous ramp. Gradation tone, in which dot size varies across the sheet, belongs to the screened family.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Imagery
- **typography** — Balloon text is set vertically and read right to left (tategaki).
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Typography
- **line** — Black line art of varying weight underneath everything. Tone and speed lines presuppose it.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: No source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Imagery
- **motion** — In the print serial there is no enacted motion. Motion is depicted — by speed lines, focus lines and panel sequence — never animated.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: No source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Motion
- **typography** — Sound effects are drawn as part of the artwork rather than typeset — lettering shaped, scaled and placed as a picture element (kakimoji).
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Typography
- **motif** — A conventionalized graphic vocabulary carries emotion, motion and emphasis: standalone icons readable without context (manpu — sweat drops, vein marks, nose bubbles) and context-dependent effects that need the surrounding drawing to mean anything (speed lines, focus lines). Together these are keiyu, shape metaphors.
  - Kind of claim: Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking · Product area: Motif

### Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed

- **color** — Interior pages are printed in a single black ink on off-white stock, with tone standing in for colour.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed · Product area: Color

### No source attached

- **layout** — Gutters are asymmetric: the gap between rows is larger than the gap between panels inside a row, which is what makes the eye complete a row before dropping to the next.
  - Kind of claim: No source attached · Evidence: No source attached · Product area: Layout

### Documented · Source not yet verified

- **page** — Production formats, stated as publishing facts rather than compositional choices: pages are drawn oversize on B4 manuscript stock (257 x 364 mm) and reduced for print. Magazine serialisation is B5; the collected tankoubon is B6, 128 x 182 mm.
  - Kind of claim: Documented · Source not yet verified · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Product area: not mapped

### Web translation

- **image_treatment** — DO NOT specify a screentone LPI value for screen output.
  - Kind of claim: Web translation · Evidence: Web translation · Product area: Imagery

## Found in research

What research established from sources Aesthetary opened and checked. Each line names its area, how it is known, and where it is scoped. "Seen in the work" means the source documents particular works or products rather than the Aesthetic as a whole.

- **Technique** — The analogue method is pencil then pen-and-ink on manuscript paper, with screentone applied: pens, ink and manuscript paper are the base materials.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-1` · Covers analogue production.
- **Technique** — In the conventional process, screentone patterns are transferred to the drawing from preprinted sheets.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-2`
- **Technique** — Screentone came into use in manga backgrounds from the 1950s.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-3` · Covers lower temporal edge for tone-screened; the second clause is encyclopedia-only and flagged as poorly sourced there.
- **Technique** — Professional manuscript paper is B4 (257 × 364 mm) with non-reproducing light-blue guides.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:technique-4` · Covers retailer blog corroborated by the Meiji exhibition's IC B4 'professional/submission' paper.
- **Technique** — Major publishers' manga awards accept digital submissions (PDF, JPG/PNG, Clip Studio).
  - Evidence: Seen in the work · Claim: `kcc:technique-5` · Covers present day.
- **Hierarchy** — Differences in panel size, panel shape and panel changes create contrast, compression and release, which Natsume treats as where manga becomes interesting.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:hierarchy-1` · Covers practitioner and editorial sources plus Natsume's theory.
- **Hierarchy** — A relatively large square panel makes the reader's eye halt, and contrasts in panel size and shape create compression and release.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:hierarchy-3` · Covers Natsume on Ishinomori, 1960s.
- **Hierarchy** — Hierarchy works at the panel, page and two-page-spread levels.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:hierarchy-5`
- **Density** — Pages are commonly built in two to three tiers, with at most about six or seven panels before a page becomes cluttered.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:density-1` · Covers one shōjo practitioner's teaching on a submission portal; a rule of thumb, not a publisher standard.
- **Density** — Compression and release are calculated per page and per two-page spread, and readers today are expected to read highly dense works easily.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:density-2`
- **Density** — Conventional graphic signs appear at about 1.5 per panel where present, similar in shōnen and shōjo.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:density-3` · Covers 20 books, 1997–2012.
- **Density** — The serial carrier is dense itself: anthology magazines of hundreds of pages printed on cheap newsprint.
  - Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Claim: `kcc:density-4` · Covers encyclopedia support.

## Positions by area

The overall position recorded for each area. "No overall position recorded" means rules exist for the area but no position above them; the rules still apply. It is not the same as "Not established", which means nobody has researched the area.

- **Layout** — Core, and specified
- **Typography** — Core, and specified. Vertical tategaki setting inside balloons; hand-drawn onomatopoeia integrated into the art rather than set. A real constraint with no module bound - the largest single authoring gap across the three entities.
- **Color** — Core, and specified. Monochrome interiors are a production default rather than a canonical refusal of colour: colour pages run in the same serials and signal editorial priority. The slot stays constrained because colour is a decision taken deliberately and rarely, not because it is forbidden. Tone substitutes for colour in the default case.
- **Imagery** — Core, and specified
- **Motif** — Core, and specified. RAISED FROM UNKNOWN. It was unknown because the emanata system was unresearched. Two independently verified sources now establish both that the vocabulary exists as a closed class and how it is internally structured: 73 conventionalized graphic schemas recurring across shonen and shojo (Cohn & Ehly), and the keiyu/manpu/effects distinction (Takekuma). Confidence is medium rather than high: frequency across dialects has been measured, the boundaries of the class have not.
- **Technique** — Core, and specified. Screentone is a production technique currently filed under imagery. The slot is constrained; the module carrying it sits in another kind. A kind-assignment artefact, already queued - not a missing module.
- **Surface** — Outside this language. Paper stock varies by format - cheap newsprint in magazines, better stock in tankoubon - and neither is characteristic. The posture is asserted relative to print and does not carry to screen.
- **Interface** — Outside this language. The area does not apply; this is not a gap in the research.
- **Motion** — Outside this language. A static medium. Motion is DEPICTED via speed lines, not enacted. Binding a motion module would confuse depiction with animation.
- **Form** — Outside this language. No three-dimensional organisation. The page format, B6 trim and two-page spread are constraints.

## Design grammar — web primitives

A starting grammar for a website in Manga: panels that set the pace, ink and tone instead of colour, lettering instead of type, and motion that is drawn rather than animated.

Three kinds of line: **On the record** names a rule this record holds (its wording is under Established rules) and states what it becomes on the web. **Web translation** is Aesthetary's choice for the web, derived from the rules it cites; change it if you have a reason, keep the cited rule. **Not specified by the source** means the research reached this but the sources say nothing about it; **Not researched yet** means the research has not reached it yet. Either way, follow the instruction and do not invent a rule. Structured version: `designGrammar` in data/manga.json.

### Colour

| Role | Value | Contrast | Use | Kind |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| paper | `#F4F1EA` | — | The page: off-white stock. | Web translation |
| ink | `#111111` | 16.7:1 | Line art, lettering, solid blacks. | Web translation |
| tone | `#111111 at 18% coverage` | — | Screened fields that stand in for colour. A pattern, never a flat grey. | Web translation |

- **On the record · Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed** · `token_rule:monochrome-default` → Use black ink on off-white paper; tone does the work of colour.
- **Web translation** — Colour is allowed, used rarely and on purpose, the way colour pages mark priority. _Why:_ Our reading of the record's position on colour, applied to a web page; the position is not itself a rule. (`slot_posture:color`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources specify no colour palette. _Instead:_ If a page needs colour, use it for one priority moment and do not claim a manga palette.

### Typography

Family: not specified by the sources (the record governs how balloon text is set and that sound effects are drawn, not which face). Stack: `"Hiragino Mincho ProN", "Yu Mincho", "Noto Serif JP", serif`

| Role | Size | Weight | Line height | Case | Tracking | Measure | Setting | Use |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| balloon | 1rem | 400 | 1.6 | not specified | not specified | — | vertical, right to left (tategaki), for Japanese text | Dialogue inside balloons. |
| caption | 0.875rem | 700 | 1.4 | not specified | not specified | — | — | Narration boxes, labels, page counts. |

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:tategaki-balloon-setting` → Set Japanese balloon text vertically, reading right to left (writing-mode: vertical-rl).
- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:drawn-onomatopoeia` → Draw sound effects as artwork (SVG shapes placed in the picture), never as live text in a font.
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify a setting for Latin-script text. _Instead:_ Set Latin text horizontally. Do not rotate English to imitate tategaki.
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify a balloon typeface. _Instead:_ The system Mincho stack here is a placeholder; any face is a decision to state, not a manga rule.

### Grid and layout

Panels, not columns: the page is divided into panels of unequal size and shape, read right to left and top to bottom. Space between rows is larger than space between panels.

Tokens: row-gap `1.25rem` · panel-gap `0.5rem`

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:panel-size-pacing` → Vary panel size on purpose: a wide panel slows the reader, a narrow one speeds them up.
- **On the record · No source attached** · `token_rule:gutter-asymmetry` → Set row-gap larger than column-gap (1.25rem against 0.5rem here) so the eye finishes a row first.
- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:panel-progression` → Order panels right to left, top to bottom; never mirror an existing sequence.
- **Web translation** — Build pages with CSS Grid and explicit panel areas, not an equal column grid. _Why:_ Panel size is the pacing instrument, and it survives the move to screen. (`token_rule:panel-size-pacing`, `transfer_note:print_serial->screen_web`)
- **Not specified by the source** — Print trim (B5, B6) is not a screen format. _Instead:_ Do not force a 1:1.42 page on screen; the record lists the trim as not surviving the transfer.

### Shape and geometry

Tokens: line-heavy `3px` · line-light `1px` · radius `0`

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:line-art-substrate` → Draw every boundary as black line art of varying weight (1px to 3px here), never as a tinted box.
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify corner radius or panel shape. _Instead:_ Square panels are a starting point; draw slanted or broken panels where the pacing needs them.

### Imagery

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:tone-screened` → Shade with screened fields (dot or line patterns with cut edges), never a smooth gradient.
- **Web translation** — Do not fix a screen frequency for tone; define it as a pattern that scales. _Why:_ Moving the screentone rule to screen, as the record's own note on moving it to screen directs. (`token_rule:no-screen-lpi`, `transfer_note:print_serial->screen_web`)
- **Web translation** — Speed lines and screentone are the image techniques this language is built on. _Why:_ Both are Elements this Aesthetic is linked to in our catalogue; the link is not itself a rule. (`module_edge:5Q3WEEX89Y65730FFF4EMGVJ2B`, `module_edge:69AEB3A54D74C30QXKBGRCRDWH`)

### Tone

Screentone: the grey of manga is a pattern. Tone is built as a scalable fill with a hard edge, in two densities.

Tokens: tone-light `radial-gradient(#111 22%, transparent 24%) 0 0 / 6px 6px` · tone-dark `radial-gradient(#111 40%, transparent 42%) 0 0 / 5px 5px`

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:tone-screened` → Fill toned areas with a screened pattern that stops at a cut edge.
- **Web translation** — Size the pattern in CSS so it scales with zoom (6px and 5px cells here). _Why:_ Tone as CSS or SVG pattern fills that scale, never a raster at a fixed frequency. (`transfer_note:print_serial->screen_web`, `token_rule:no-screen-lpi`)

### Reading order

The binding sets the order, and nothing may reverse it: panels, balloons and page turns all run right to left.

Tokens: direction `rtl`

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:panel-progression` → Run panels, balloons and page turns right to left, top to bottom.
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify order in a continuously scrolling layout. _Instead:_ The record withdrew its claim for scroll. State the order you chose.

### Graphic vocabulary

A closed set of marks with fixed meanings: speed and focus lines, sweat drops, vein marks.

- **On the record · Necessary · our ranking** · `token_rule:graphic-vocabulary` → Use the conventional marks (speed lines, focus lines, sweat drops, vein marks) with their fixed meanings; do not invent new ones.

### Components

Anatomy, tokens and states below are Web translation: Aesthetary's specification for the screen. Each value line after them says whether it restates a rule this record holds.

#### Button

A small panel: a drawn black border on paper that fills with tone when pressed.

- Anatomy: 2px ink border (a drawn line); label in the caption face; no fill until interaction
- Tokens: border `2px solid ink` · background `paper` · hover `light tone` · active `dark tone` · radius `0`
- State, default: Paper field, 2px ink line.
- State, hover: Light screentone fills the panel. The swap is instant.
- State, focus: The line thickens to 4px and a 2px outline sits outside it.
- State, active: Dark tone fills the panel.
- State, disabled: 1px line, label in grey tone, no fill.
- Accessibility: Label stays on a solid paper patch above the tone, so contrast never depends on the pattern.
- Accessibility: At least 44 × 44px.
- **Web translation** — Draw the button as a panel: an ink line on paper. _Why:_ Line art is the substrate everything sits on. (`token_rule:line-art-substrate`)
- **Web translation** — Show hover and press with tone, not colour or movement. _Why:_ Tone stands in for colour, and motion is depicted rather than enacted. (`token_rule:tone-screened`, `token_rule:monochrome-default`, `token_rule:motion-depicted`)

#### Card

A panel whose size is an instruction: the card that matters most takes the widest panel, and the reader slows there.

- Anatomy: ink border; optional toned image area; caption box with title and one line
- Tokens: border `2px solid ink` · rowGap `1.25rem` · panelGap `0.5rem`
- State, default: Ink border on paper.
- State, hover: Border thickens to 4px.
- State, focus: 2px outline outside the border.
- Accessibility: The whole panel is one link.
- Accessibility: Order in the DOM matches the right-to-left reading order.
- **Web translation** — Give cards deliberately unequal sizes; the size says how long to stay. _Why:_ The record rules print panels of deliberately unequal size, with size controlling pacing; cards carry that into a grid. (`token_rule:panel-size-pacing`)
- **Web translation** — Leave more space between rows of cards than between cards in a row. _Why:_ The record rules print gutters wider between rows than between panels in a row; cards carry that into a grid. (`token_rule:gutter-asymmetry`)

#### Input

A narration box: a ruled rectangle on paper with its label lettered above it.

- Anatomy: 2px ink border; paper field; label above in the caption face; error as a lettered line below
- Tokens: border `2px solid ink` · radius `0` · height `3rem`
- State, default: 2px ink line.
- State, focus: 4px ink line and outline.
- State, error: Dark tone behind the message, which begins "Error:".
- State, disabled: 1px line on light tone.
- Accessibility: The label is real text above the field, never inside it.
- Accessibility: Error text sits on paper, not on tone.
- **Web translation** — Rule the field with an ink line, like a caption box. _Why:_ Line art underneath everything. (`token_rule:line-art-substrate`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify a speech-balloon input. _Instead:_ Balloons in the record hold dialogue; do not shape form fields as balloons and call it manga.

#### Navigation

Page turns in the reading direction: "next" sits on the left, and the sequence is never mirrored.

- Anatomy: previous and next as page-turn controls; next on the left, previous on the right; page count between them
- Tokens: direction `rtl` · border `2px solid ink`
- State, default: Two ruled panels with the page count between them.
- State, hover: Light tone fills the control.
- State, focus: 4px line and outline.
- State, current: The page count, lettered in bold.
- Accessibility: Controls are labelled "Next page" and "Previous page", not by arrow direction.
- Accessibility: dir="rtl" on the reader so assistive technology follows the order.
- **Web translation** — Put "next" on the left: page turns follow the right-to-left binding. _Why:_ The record fixes panel, balloon and page-turn order to the right-to-left binding in print; a paged reader keeps that order on screen. (`token_rule:panel-progression`, `transfer_note:print_serial->screen_web`)
- **Not specified by the source** — The sources do not specify right-to-left order on a continuously scrolling page. _Instead:_ Use it inside a paged reader. For a scrolling layout the record withdrew its claim; decide and say so.

### Motion

- **Web translation** — Do not animate. Show motion with speed lines, focus lines and panel sequence. _Why:_ The record rules that the print serial depicts motion and never enacts it; screen motion is outside the language, so this grammar chooses none. (`token_rule:motion-depicted`, `slot_posture:motion`)
- **Web translation** — Interface state changes are instant swaps of line weight or tone. _Why:_ Motion is depicted, never enacted; a transition would enact it. (`token_rule:motion-depicted`, `slot_posture:motion`)

### Deliberately not added

- **A colour palette** (color): The record holds ink, paper and tone. Colour is allowed, but the sources specify no palette.
- **A typeface, and any setting for Latin text** (typography): The record governs balloon setting and drawn sound effects only.
- **Corner radius and panel shape** (shapeGeometry): Not specified by the source; panel shape follows pacing.
- **Any manga position on interface** (components): The interface slot is unknown. All four components are contemporary translations of documented rules.
- **Any manga position on screen motion** (motion): The record rules print, where motion is depicted and never enacted. Motion on screen is outside the language; choosing none is this grammar’s translation.
- **Right-to-left order on continuous scroll** (dimension.reading): The record withdrew this claim rather than narrowing it.

## Not researched yet

Every area of this record has a recorded position. That is unusual — most records do not.

## Grade your own work

15 checks: 1 mechanically testable, 12 needing a person to look, 0 needing a source Aesthetary does not hold, 2 with no recorded position. Scores do not add up. A failure against a required rule and a departure from something we invented are not the same result, and no total should let them cancel.

### Recognition — does this read as the intended Aesthetic?

- **[visual_human · recognition signature · Evidence: No grade recorded]** Strip every logo, word and borrowed image out of your work, then show it to someone who knows the collection. Do they land on this Aesthetic? The signature to hold is: A page divided into panels of deliberately unequal size and shape, read from the upper right leftward and then down, with tonal shading supplied by screentone, though seinen and gekiga use crosshatching freely alongside it, and motion rendered as directional speed lines. The diagnostic property is the combination of irregular panel proportion with right-to-left order: irregular panels alone occur throughout Western comics, and screentone alone is now a widely borrowed texture. Reading direction derives from tategaki, the traditional vertical Japanese writing order.
  - _If it fails:_ The work may be competent and still read as a different Aesthetic, or as none. Nothing below matters until this passes.

### Fidelity — are its defining rules present?

- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Panel order is fixed by the binding direction and cannot be mirrored without inverting every sequence built on it. In right-bound Japanese publishing that order runs right to left and top to bottom, and panel, balloon and page turn all follow it.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Panels of deliberately unequal size and shape. Size controls pacing.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Tone is a screened field with cut edges — a halftone structure specified by frequency and density — rather than an unscreened continuous ramp. Gradation tone, in which dot size varies across the sheet, belongs to the screened family.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Balloon text is set vertically and read right to left (tategaki).
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: No source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Black line art of varying weight underneath everything. Tone and speed lines presuppose it.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: No source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? In the print serial there is no enacted motion. Motion is depicted — by speed lines, focus lines and panel sequence — never animated.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? Sound effects are drawn as part of the artwork rather than typeset — lettering shaped, scaled and placed as a picture element (kakimoji).
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.
- **[visual_human · Necessary · our ranking · Evidence: Documented · Source attached · Strength: Necessary · our ranking]** Does your work hold this? A conventionalized graphic vocabulary carries emotion, motion and emphasis: standalone icons readable without context (manpu — sweat drops, vein marks, nose bubbles) and context-dependent effects that need the surrounding drawing to mean anything (speed lines, focus lines). Together these are keiyu, shape metaphors.
  - _If it fails:_ The result is not this Aesthetic. This is a requirement of the language, not a preference.

### Implementation — were those rules translated appropriately into this medium?

- **[visual_human · Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified · disputed]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Interior pages are printed in a single black ink on off-white stock, with tone standing in for colour.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · No source attached · Evidence: No source attached]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Gutters are asymmetric: the gap between rows is larger than the gap between panels inside a row, which is what makes the eye complete a row before dropping to the next.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[mechanical · Documented · Source not yet verified · Evidence: Documented · Source not yet verified]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. Production formats, stated as publishing facts rather than compositional choices: pages are drawn oversize on B4 manuscript stock (257 x 364 mm) and reduced for print. Magazine serialisation is B5; the collected tankoubon is B6, 128 x 182 mm.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.
- **[visual_human · Web translation · Evidence: Web translation]** Your work may depart from this — but knowingly, not by accident. DO NOT specify a screentone LPI value for screen output.
  - _If it fails:_ A defensible departure, and you should be able to say why you made it.

### Avoidance — known failure modes, neighbour drift, cloning

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Nothing is recorded for this Aesthetic on: did the work avoid the known failure modes, and avoid cloning its references?
  - _If it fails:_ Not applicable. An empty dimension is an absence of research, never a pass and never a failure.

### Accessibility — the Aesthetic preserved without its inaccessible practice

- **[unassessable · no recorded position · Evidence: Not researched yet (`UNKNOWN`)]** Does this Aesthetic conflict with any usability floor? Nobody has recorded one for it.
  - _If it fails:_ Nothing — and that is the problem. An unrecorded conflict is not an absent one. Hold AA on reading matter and decide the rest on other grounds.

## Rules for the agent

1. Do not invent rules for any area listed under **Not researched yet**.
2. Do not treat an absent position as permission to do anything you like — say that the language has no position, and decide on other grounds.
3. Keep our interpretations separable from the language's own requirements. If asked to justify a choice, cite which kind of claim it came from.
4. If you need something this record does not contain, say so rather than producing a confident answer from the aesthetic's name.
5. When you self-score against "Grade your own work", score only checks marked `mechanical`. Declare `visual_human` and `evidence_dependent` checks unjudged rather than guessing, and never score an `unassessable` one.
6. Evidence "Not researched yet" (`UNKNOWN`) is never a failure. It means nobody researched the dimension, so departing from what is written there costs nothing and must not be reported as a defect. "No grade recorded" is not a grade either: do not treat it as our decision or as an outside source.
7. In **Design grammar**, a "Web translation" line is our choice for the web and may be changed with a reason; the rules it cites may not. Never present a translation as a property of the language.

## Provenance

- Record: `manga` · status `draft` · research `partly_researched`
- Full structured record: https://aesthetary.com/data/manga.json
- Human-readable record: https://aesthetary.com/a/manga.html
- This file is a snapshot. The record may have changed since; check the page above.

_Aesthetary is an alpha. Where a page says nothing, nobody has done the work yet._