Making metadata for Manga
and applying Topic Maps to it
Shoichiro HARA
Center for Integrated Area Studies, Kyoto University
Motomu NAITO
Knowledge Synergy Inc.
Outline
1.
2.
3.
4.
Background and Purpose
Functions of Manga Metadata
Components of Manga Metadata
Apply Topic Maps to the metadata
- Bibliographical Metadata
- Structural Metadata
5. Web Applications on topic maps
6. Conclusion
7. Challenge and Future work
1. Background and Purposes

Manga has already established itself a genre of culture
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One of foremost Japanese pop culture
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–
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Media diversity/derivation: Weekly periodicals, books, animations, movies,
dramas, theaters, parodies etc.
Problems of Manga
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
World wide market
Attractive to Japanese culture and language
Media characteristics
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
Sales in 2011: 271.7 Bill. / 1112.3 Bill.
Easy to be disappeared
 Easy to be out of print and/or cease publication
 Easy to be discarded
 Easy to be destroyed
Importance of Metadata, digitization and preservation
But there are no well established metadata for Manga database
THEN, our trial to define new metadata of Manga
Bookstore in Bangkok
2. Functions of Manga Metadata
1. Ability to describe media diversity and derivation
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From weekly periodicals to books and animations etc.
2. Ability to keep all aspects of Manga
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Bibliographic, texts, images, movies etc.
3. Importance of participatory data creation
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No special librarians/catalogers of Manga
Need grass roots supports (expressly for foreign materials)
4. Importance of effective use of Web information
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Much information about bibliographies, explanatory notes, authors,
publishers etc. are available from Web
Metadata will be used to organize existing information
Thus Our Metadata


should be easy to create and use
should be compatible with other metadata
3. Components of Manga Metadata
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Bibliographic Metadata
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Structural Metadata
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DC based simple structure
Describes elementary information about general concept of work,
each work/media (such as book, novel, TV drama, movie, etc.),
each resource, etc.
Describes structural component of Manga book such as Page,
Coma(Frame), Picture, Text, Symbol, etc.
Will try to apply TEI
Topic Maps and Web application
–
–
Express metadata as network
Link each component with other Web data
Materials
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Title：花より男子 (Hana yori dango) / Boys over Flowers
Author：神尾葉子/ Kamio, Yoko
Outlines
– Original: Serial Manga published inマーガレット (Marguerite), a biweekly
girls’ Manga magazine published by 集英社 (Shuei-sha), from 1992 to 2004.
– Book: 37 volumes. The best selling girls’ Manga in Japan (58000000 copies
until Sep. 2006)
– Multimedia: animation, drama, movie.
– Translated versions: USA, Taiwan, Thailand, France, Spain etc.

Reasons for Research Material
– Various medias: good sample for metadata
– Various translated versions: good for multilingual text sample
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Material : Book version (Vol. 1)
– Japanese (original) (Shuei-sha）
– English (Viz Media)
– Thai (Siam Inter Comics)
Image Data
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Image scanning
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300dpi
Gray scale（8bit）, Only cover page is color scanning
Preprocessing
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Remove the cover
Then cut the binding of the book
(Bind the book again after scanning)
8
Composition of Manga
Example of Structure Metadata
10
Example of Bibliographic Metadata
element
content
Title
BOYS over FLOWERS
Creator
Description
Yoko Kamio, PSI
element
Content
Love story, http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlsh/00569390 (PSI)
print, PSI
Format
Manga, book, URL
Publisher
SHUEISHA Inc., PSI
Contributor
Agent, PSI, Role
Date
1992
Type
StillImage, PSI
Subject
Identifier
Source
URL of resource
Language
Ja, PSI
Relation
isFormatOf, URL of resource
Coverage
Heisei, PSI place, PSI
Rights
Yoko Kamio, PSI
4. Apply Topic Maps to the Metadata
What and Why Topic Maps?
 Simple, Intuitive and Human-friendly model for organizing
information
– Models target domain as concept/subject network (topics and
associations between topics)
– Links concepts and related information resources (occurrences)
 Consists of types (which corresponding Ontology) and instances
– Same vocabularies and syntax are used for Types and Instances
 Uses Subject Identifier (IRI or URI) to identify subjects (topics)
and link/merge subjects
 Has very powerful Topic Maps query language: tolog
 Has remote access protocol: TMRAP to access remote topic maps
 Topic Maps is an ISO standard (ISO/IEC 13250)
 Can use matured open source tools, e.g. Ontopia
http://code.google.com/p/ontopia/
The Basic Model of Topic Maps
•
Some pool of information or data
– any type, format, or location
•
A knowledge layer, consisting of:
•
Topics
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•
representing relationships between
subjects
Occurrences
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•
draw
a set of topics representing the key
subjects of the domain in question
draw
Associations
–
•
P.S.
Topics, associations and occurrences have types,
and all types are also topics…
Cat Street
BOYS over
FLOWERS
Yoko Kamio
born in
links to information that is somehow
relevant to a given subject
= The TAO of Topic Maps
（Source: Steve Pepper, “Towards Seamless Knowledge” ）
TOKYO
knowledge
information
13
General View and target of Manga Metadata
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Three types targets
– Work(著作), Expression(表現形), Manifestation(体現形)
Metadata is made for each instance of the types
Describing relationships (e.g. derivation) between instances
Bibliographic Metadata
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
Metadata is described by DCMES’s (Dublin Core Metadata
Element Set) 15 elements and relationship between them
Attaching identifier(IRI or URI) to the elements as far as possible
Refer to: Steve Pepper, Expressing Dublin Core Metadata using Topic Maps,
http://www.jtc1sc34.org/repository/0906.htm
Topic map of Bibliographic Metadata
Topic Types (8): Work, Expression, Manifestation, Agent,
Coverage class, Language class, Subject class, Type class
 Occurrence Types (5): Description, Date, Format, Identifier,
Rights
 Association Types (9): createdBy, hasSubject, publishedBy,
contributedBy, typeAs, sourceOf, expressedIn, relatedWith,
coveredWith
 Association role Types (18): creator, subject, publisher,
contributor, type, source, language, relation, coverage, resourcerole-for-creator, resource-role-for-subject, resource-role-forpublisher, resource-role-for-contributor, resource-role-for-type,
resource-role-for-type, resource-role-for-language, resource-rolefor-relation, resource-role-for-coverage
 title is used as topic name of resources (Work, Expression,
Manifestation)
* Red characters represent DCMES
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Structural Metadata
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Structural Metadata is described by Composition elements of
Manga (volume, scene, page coma, script/onomatopoeia, person)
and relationship between them
IRIs (URIs) are attached to all components
Topic map of Structural Metadata
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Topic Types (6)：Volume, Scene, Page, Coma,
Script/Onomatopoeia, Person
Occurrence Types (3)：Attribute, String, image
Association Types (8)：part-of, appear, depict, speak, beforeafter, coma-before-after, script-before-after, scene-before-after
Association Role Types (16)：whole, part, coma-appearingperson, person-in-coma, coma-depicting-script, script-in-coma,
speaker, script-of-speaker, before, after, coma-before, coma-after,
script-before, script-after, scene-before, scene-after
Scope : Japanese(ja), English(en), Thai(th)
Topic map of Structural Metadata

Instance topics
– volume： 1
– scene: 29
– page： 158
– come： 550
– script/onomatopoeia： 1,239
– person (character): 18

Instance associations
– part-of： 780
– appear： 520
– depict： 1239
– before-after： 157
– coma-before-after: 547
– Script-before-after: 1238
5. Web Applications on topic maps
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Make Bibliographic topic map and Structural topic
map separately
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Transform CSV format to Topic Maps syntax
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Using “DB2TM” in Ontopia as a tool
Make Web application separately
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Using “Ontopia Navigator Framework” in Ontopia as a tool
Link bibliographic topic map with structural topic
map
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One way link at the moment
Functions of the Web applications
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Instance list for each topic type
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Instance details
– Topic characteristics (topic name, internal occurrence, external occurrence,
association role)
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Graphic representation
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Keyword search
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Tolog query
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Navigating topics based on associations
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Web service interface by TMRAP
Web Application for Bibliographic Metadata
Web Application for Structural Metadata
Top page
Key word search
Structural Metadata Web application
Script/Onomatopoeia list
Script/Onomatopoeia detail
Coma detail
6. Conclusion

Manga and related resources should be preserved and
inherited

Metadata plays very important roles to realize it
By our method metadata changes from mere list of
elements to structured network of concepts (including
derivation)
 Necessity for introduction of semantic technology

– This research uses Topic Maps technology
– Computer can identify concepts using IRI or URI
– Queries can be done from various point of views and based on
association
In result
 It becomes easy to manage, find and access the metadata
and information resources (target of metadata)
 It makes new way to create and add new value to domains
7. Challenge and Future work
Increase examples of Manga Metadata
 Conform the Bibliographic Metadata to FRBR
 Develop environment for metadata input and maintenance
 Make metadata guideline for animation, drama, movie, etc.
 Develop environment for register, manage and use of
Subject Identifier (IRI or URI)
 Use authority data and ID of author and organization
– E.g. Web NDL Authorities
Yoko Kamio: http://id.ndl.go.jp/auth/ndlna/00320527
 Ensure enough terms for subject (NDLSH are not enough)
 Make multilingual metadata
 And all that

Challenge and Future work (cont.)
Utilization of the Metadata
 Send messages about Manga related information resources to all
over the world and pass them down the generations
 Try to apply the metadata to the learning materials, user guides
and maintenance manuals for the instruments, etc.
In order to increase usefulness of the Metadata, we would like to
make sure some ambiguity requests can also be fulfilled.
Such as:
 I'd like to find “that manga” which I read when I was a child.
 I'd like to use “appropriate manga” to check “Trend, Culture,
Fashion, etc.” of “some old days”.
Thank you!
Any suggestion?