Have you read the story of the boy who turns into a girl every time he gets soaked with cold water?

If that doesn’t whet your appetite, there’s the one about a girl who lives at the site of a shrine, where she falls in a well and journeys back in time to feudal Japan, then embarks on a quest as the reincarnation of a priestess.

These are just two titles – ”Ranma 1/2” and ”Inuyasha,” respectively – available in the burgeoning world of manga. These serial Japanese comics and their changeling characters have little in common with Western comic books and graphic novels, with their heavy focus on troubled and/or muscled superheroes, blatantly built females and combat.

In the 21st-century United States, manga has gone from cult status to widespread popularity, thanks to the Internet, word of mouth and anime (Japanese animated) films that draw from manga story lines. According to a recent article in The New York Times, manga sales doubled from about $50 million in 2002 to $100 million in 2003.

What is it?

First, ”manga is not a genre,” points out Charlie Platt, proprietor of AnimeMountain, a shop in Bend specializing in manga sales and DVD rentals and sales. In Japan, he adds, ”it covers all genres … it covers everything. They do (manga-style) government pamphlets; they do sports instructional.”

Among other differences between manga and American comics, the former reads from right to left, and more and more English-language translations are starting to as well. In Japan, manga is considered, and treated, with the respect due ”serious, serious literature,” Platt says.

And, he adds, the celebrity level of a manga creator, or ”mangaka,” is comparable to that of an American television star or popular author such as John Grisham.

The diverse stories and fantastic situations found in manga are steeped in Japanese fables and history, says Platt.

And a good portion of American manga consumers – about half, in Platt’s case – are female. Duncan McGeary, owner of Pegasus Books in Bend, says more than half his manga customers are female; 85 percent of his sales of traditional American comics are to males.

Pegasus customer Jennifer Rowery, 20, of Bend, has been an ”otaku,” or fan, of manga and anime since her brother turned her on to ”Ranma 1/2.” Now, the Lancair Corp. employee also reads ”Fruits Basket” and ”Full Metal Panic!”

Before her fall move from Colorado, Rowery says she led her friends back home into the fun-and-fantasy world of manga. For her, part of manga and anime’s appeal lies in the fact that ”they bring stories to life that you wouldn’t expect.” The stories are more fun than American comics, she says, and ”it’s not all about romance.”

Game designer, essayist and amateur artist Eri Izawa writes in an online essay: ”Perhaps it is the mix of harsh reality with the tantalizing world of fantasy that makes Japanese manga and anime so appealing. Many popular series, such as ‘Doraemon,’ ‘Ranma 1/2’ and ‘Kimagure Orange Road,’ follow the lives of seemingly ordinary people … who have a shadow life that makes them somehow special.”

In an interview by e-mail, Izawa elaborates that manga geared toward young people tends to ”reveal a lot of the characters’ thoughts and emotions – complex thoughts and emotions that I found to be a good mirror of teenage angst. The characters’ deep struggles often strongly mirror the readers’ at some level.”

For Rowery, further appeal stems from how artists draw females. ”I once heard someone say they draw females with big eyes and cutesy little faces so they look like babies,” Rowery says. ”I think that’s what draws people in without even realizing it; ’cause everybody loves babies. And then you see this art, and the girls are all cute, because they have the big eyes and lots of hair. I don’t know; it’s just weird.”

Manga books cost about $10 each, while anime DVDs can run from $20 to $30. In other words, it’s not a cheap hobby.

Katie Koplau, 21, of Bend, collects several manga series. She swaps books with a male friend to save money.

She’s been reading manga since she was 16.

Sisters’ Nicole Jermaczonak, 15, started reading and collecting in the sixth grade, but her first exposure came when she saw the anime series ”Sailor Moon” on TV. Two of her favorite manga series right now are ”Gravitation” and ”Tsubasa,” the latter by the manga collective Clamp. Jermaczonak likes that ”the hero doesn’t always win. He can lose something in it, or he dies.”

Despite the popularity of ”shojo,” or manga aimed at female readers, Anime Mountain’s Platt is quick to point out that it’s nearly impossible to define an average manga and anime consumer.

”My demographic is anything from 7-year-old boys to 50-year-old men,” he says. ”And everything in between.”

To long-time fans like Bend’s Katie Koplau, the growth of manga could prove a mixed blessing. As translated manga becomes more widely available, Koplar wonders if it’s just the passing fancy of trendy types, who won’t help sustain manga in the long run.

If increasingly artful American comic books still carry any words-and-pictures stigma, that is not the case with manga in Japan. To anyone who ever snuck a peek at a comic tucked inside a text book, Platt can’t overstate the mainstream acceptability of manga in Japan. Government documents, including voter pamphlets, can be illustrated in the wide-eyed manga style,

After American culture, Japanese culture is the second-most exported culture in the world, says Platt.

Does Platt think manga will continue to boom Stateside? ”It better,” he jokes. ”It will. It definitely will.”

That could be the case. Jermaczonak says that she has more than 30 friends who are into manga, and none who read old-fangled comics.

”I don’t know many people that are into the traditional stuff,” she says.

David Jasper can be reached at 541-383-0349 or djasper@bendbulletin.com.