New Life League / Tyndale This is one of several Bibles that has appeared recently in the manga format.

TOKYO — The Archbishop of Canterbury is not generally known for making comic book recommendations, but Rowan Williams, holder of that office, has been quoted as calling the "Manga Bible" "an exciting new venture, in completely up-to-the-minute style and speech. It will convey the shock and freshness of the Bible in a new way."

"The Manga Bible" (Doubleday, 218 pages. $12.95), by a British artist named Siku, is one of several Christian scriptural-themed works to appear in manga format recently. It condenses everything from Genesis to Revelation into one action-packed volume.

"Manga Messiah" (Tyndale, 287 pages. $12.99), written by Hidenori Kumai with art by Kozumi Shinozawa, is also a single volume, but it sticks to the life of Jesus. The right-wing Christian activist organization Focus on the Family endorses this book, calling it "an edgy rendition of the Gospel accounts (that is) both compelling and highly engaging."

A third work, "Manga Bible" (Zondervan, five volumes and counting. $6.99 each), has its origins in South Korea. Written by Young Shin Lee with art by Jung Sun Hwang, it aims to be more comprehensive, covering almost all the major biblical events and plenty of minor ones. For this article, I read only Volume 1, which covers Genesis and Exodus.

Do they work as Bibles?

Each of these books marries style and content in ways that raise two big questions: Do they work as Bibles? And, do they work as manga?

In contrast to the religious raves from Canterbury, England, and Colorado Springs, Colo. (where Focus on the Family is headquartered), the books' reception on the artistic front has been lukewarm.

"I think the whole concept is really strange, since Japan is such a secular country," Notre Dame University Professor Deborah Shamoon, a specialist in Japanese popular culture, wrote in an e-mail, noting that at least two of the books originated outside Japan.

"But I don't think these are aimed at a Japanese audience — they are aimed at U.S. teens who are manga fans. ... Christian publishing has become a huge industry in the U.S., so I'm not surprised the current popularity of manga in the U.S. has been reflected there as well," Shamoon said.

Roald Lidal, general director of the Saitama Prefecture-based New Life League, Japan, where the "Manga Messiah" project began, gave an explanation that matched Shamoon's theory.

"We have seen how Japanese manga has conquered the world market, and we wanted to produce a series of books that tell the story of the Bible. While Japanese artists produced the artwork and the text was first written in Japanese, we decided to publish the English version first. While we want to see as wide a distribution in Japan as possible, our goal was and is the whole world," he said.

According to Lidal, there are 760,000 copies of "Manga Messiah" in print in six languages. "We are working on distributing 800,000 copies in Uganda alone," he added.

Manga critic Jason Thompson, author of "Manga: The Complete Guide" (Del Rey, 556 pages. $19.95), said in an e-mail that "Manga Messiah" "has better narrative flow (than Siku's Manga Bible'), and I think it's the more engaging of the two adaptations. Manga Messiah' is fairly bland, despite, or because of, including practically every one of Jesus' recorded acts. Simply put, Manga Messiah' includes so much that no one event stands out; it reads as sort of a grab bag of Jesus-related information and stories."

As for artwork in the books, Shamoon pointed out that Lee's "Manga Bible," coming from South Korea, is more accurately described as manhwa than manga. (Both words are written with the same kanji characters.) However, she deemed it a poor example of manhwa, finding it "QUITE boring. Each panel is square, almost the same shape, with just a bunch of talking heads, and little to no background."

Siku's dynamic, superhero-influenced artwork is the most varied and engaging among the three books, but Shamoon and Thompson both found his artistic style to be much more Western than Japanese. Other reviewers have rated his "Manga Bible" only "manga-esque" (the Honolulu Star-Bulletin) or "manga-ish" (Anglican Journal).

"Manga Messiah" has the most recognizable manga traits, but Shamoon said: "While there is no one way to draw manga, and there are many styles and genres in Japan, it's a lot more than just characters with big eyes and pointy hair — a lot of what makes manga distinctive has to do with pacing and transitions between the panels."

While Jesus and his disciples have that cute manga-character look, the Pharisees — members of a fundamentalist Jewish sect with whom Jesus, a fellow Jew, was often at odds — are depicted in "Manga Messiah" with bigger noses, jowly jaws, squinty eyes and spotty complexions. "I think the representation of Jews is appalling," Shamoon said.

Thompson was more sanguine: "As an unsympathetic Christian reviewer pointed out, the bad guys' in Manga Messiah' are drawn in a very cliched ugly' way, but I don't think this is anti-Semitism, it's just the standard manga stereotype that minor evil characters look ugly (or in the case of Judas, they look like androgynous bishonen with feminine features and earrings). It reflects a lack of originality and skill by the artist, not an ethnic or religious prejudice."

The same issue appears more subtly in Siku's "Manga Bible," with the very word "Jew" rarely if ever appearing in the Old Testament section, and then popping up all over the New Testament — usually in a negative context.

Siku's treatment of women is even weirder than his treatment of Jews, as almost every woman in his book is a prostitute or calculating sexual opportunist. While such characters do exist in the Bible, Siku has omitted more admirable biblical women, such as Esther, who risked her life to save her people, and even Mary, the mother of Jesus.

Siku revels in the bloodier aspects of the Old Testament — and he has plenty of battles, assassinations, massacres and atrocities to choose from. But he also makes effective use of light comic relief, such as when the prophet Jonah, lost at sea, sighs, "Now what?" A moment later, about to be swallowed by a giant fish, he exclaims, "Sorry I asked!"

"Manga Messiah" employs much less artistic license, and sometimes feels flat, but it includes welcome touches of humor as well. In one example, a Pharisee who hates Samaritans (a distinct but closely related ethnic group), thinks: "Ugh! I can't even say the S' word!"

"The Bible has humor, and it is important that this comes through in the manga rendering," Lidal said. "The Bible is full of drama and conflicts, and it is important that the manga product correctly includes all of the different aspects of life and God's plan for humanity."

Corny gags

Lee's "Manga Bible" goes overboard, with corny gags on every page. Patriarch Jacob, for instance, celebrates the birth of his 11th son by remarking that he can now field his own soccer team. But some jokes are in poor taste, as when the plagues of Egypt are played as slapstick and plump sharks drool at the prospect of an "Egyptian buffet" as Pharoah's army drowns in the Red Sea.

According to a Web site promoting "Manga Messiah": "A 2004 U.S. survey indicated that 2 out of 3 born-again Christians (64 percent) accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior before their 18th birthday. Clearly the period of life between puberty and maturity is a key time of development for young people, marked by questions of self-identity and world-view."

Just as clearly, creators of manga adaptations of scripture hope to influence the developing personalities of teenagers.

But in Shamoon's view, "these (manga) are mainly preaching to the choir — I'm skeptical that these could be used to convert teens who were not already religious."

— Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.