If you discovered anime at a young age, you probably wanted to draw it as well. I still remember always drawing Goku in my notebook. My muscles were horrible! The only thing I used to do was draw three circles for his arm, and add veins to them. I understand that those aren’t muscle now, but when I was little, that was the best I could do.

I really wanted to be a manga artist when I was little, so as a wannabe artist, when I saw a “How to Draw Manga” or “How to Draw Anime” book, I couldn’t help but want to have it. Now with YouTube being such a big thing, How to Draw books in their entirety are becoming obsolete. But looking back at it, those How to Draw Manga books were so scammy and amateurous at best.

This is like one of my first ever how to draw books

I say scammy because most of these books seem like they don’t even know what anime is, or understand the style. It’s usual a grotesque form of anime that their teaching you how to draw, or a more cartoony comic book art style. There weren’t many How to Draw Manga books back in the day that actually gave you the feeling of actually anime and manga, and I don’t think most of the people making those books were actually going for that. I believe most of them thought, “Hey. Kids love this anime and manga stuff. If I just slap on Manga or Anime in the title, they’ll just automatically buy my books.” Well, you are correct. I did just automatically buy your book just because it had anime and manga in the title.

But there are books made by American artist that keep the anime feel like Mark Crilley, but with YouTube being as big as it is, there’s really no reason to even try and go looking for a How to Draw anything anymore. So hopefully that can mean no more kids are being scammed by these artist anymore.

DId you ever buy a How to Draw Manga book? Do you think these people are scamming kids? Did you want to draw anime or manga when you were little? Tell us in the comments below.