Manga sound effects

Hi, I learned katakana a couple of days ago and I struggle to recognise them in manga sound effects. Some of them seem to have an unusual shape for example [here](https://hni-scantrad.com/lel/content/comics/hajime-no-ippo_607f0191e2b31/1415-0-if-you-listen-closely_6419ec4830cce/09.png) I think I see some バ, ン and ツ at the bottom of the page, can you confirm? I’ve seen them drawn like that in other manga too, so it seems standard, but I couldn’t find any reference to it online (not sure how to search tbh). Not sure which one is at the bottom right of the first panel, maybe ウ?

6 comments
  1. They’re just stylized a bit. Those three dots at the end of some SFX are a small tsu (ッ). They indicate sort of a [glottal stop](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E3%83%83). Like a sudden halt to the sound. Sorta gives it more impact.

    The first panel’s SFX is ドビュウッ which is sort of a “WOOSH” sound to indicate the punch missed. ビュウ and ヒュウ are general wind sounds. ド at the start of another word is usually a sort of intensifier.

    Edit: Fixing details.

  2. A bit to the side to your question, but there’s an amazing resource on manga SFX called The Jaded Network and more often than not they have example frames so you can familiarise yourself with how a certain sound could look. You can search in English, too.

    http://thejadednetwork.com/sfx/

    There’s also this monstrous spreadsheet that comes in handy for offline use.

    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1iXFIVmSzukN1PYD1JakdqMmrNNlc7TtkutDKevuKM0c/edit?usp=drivesdk

    That said, the more you encounter a certain situation (say, whooosh for waterfalls), the less tricky fonts will stop you. They can get really creative sometimes lol

  3. バキッ is a sound of when something stiff, like a wood stick or human bone, is broken. It implies that the hard part of the human body was hit strongly, if not broken, in this scene.

    スカッ is being used to depict either of them failed to hit the punch because it’s for the expression of the bodily feeling of an air shot.

    As written earlier, ビュウッ is a wind sound. Rest of them are the words used to express the sound of a collision.

  4. Your question was already answered by others, but if you are interested in sfx and reading manga in Japanese, I can recommend you this site:

    [The Japan Foundation has published 4 manga in simple Japanese](https://anime-manga.jp/en/expressions-by-scene) that are fully interactable. Among many other features, you can click on every sfx/soind effect and it will give you a transcription, a translation and even play the sound effect. Sometimes there are cultural explanations as well. At the end of every 30-page manga there is a quiz on the sound effects for practise. I recommend starting with the school manga as is it the easiest in my opinion!

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