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A Yonkoma (literally, "four-cell") Manga, better known as 4-Koma, is a short comic that consists of four panels arranged vertically from beginning to end, often adopting a plot structure known as "Kishōtenketsu". Like western comic stripsnote , they are often found in newspapers, magazines, graphic novels, and other places. 4-Koma can be single-shot gags, or tell a story across several strips. (Notice that it isn't shikoma.) Expect nothing short of a Rapid-Fire Comedy from 4-Koma mangas, since they fire at least one joke every four frames.

Many Yonkoma are gag versions of full-sized manga, or are based on video games, but some manga are entirely made of Yonkoma installments. Conversely, while some anime adapt yonkama directly into a Sketch Comedy format, most create a more drawn-out storyline that fill whole episodes.

A countless number of manga have Yonkoma as Omake at the end of chapters, or at the end of the compiled volumes. Often, these are used to tell additional gags based on the chapter that immediately precedes it, and as such, provide some additional entertainment value to the volume. However, some particularly bad examples of manga have the omake Yonkoma (which may encompass less than ten pages) providing more entertainment value than the rest of the volume combined.

In Japan, manga is usually published with a dust jacket. Many manga, especially gag manga like Hayate the Combat Butler, use Yonkoma to illustrate the flaps.

Many yonkoma are also Seinen.

Sazae-san was the first comic to consistently follow this format, so it's the Trope Maker.

When listing Yonkoma on Trope Pages, please use the following guidelines:

  • If it is related to an anime in any way, put it under Anime/Manga
  • If it is hosted online, put it under Webcomics
  • If it is print newspaper, but not related to any anime or manga, then put it under Newspaper Comics
  • If it is none of the above, put it under Comics.


Examples:

Anime and Manga

Comic Books

Newspaper Comics

  • Peanuts was the Trope Codifier for newspaper comics, until most strips, Peanuts included, evolved into the 3-panel format in the '80s and '90s

Original

Video Games

Webcomics

Other Examples:

Anime and Manga

  • Mahoraba occasionally has a couple of pages of yonkoma when the cast are performing a mundane task.
    • In the anime adaption, these are recreated as scrolling, somewhat crudely drawn panels with limited animation and silly music in the background.
  • Parodied mercilessly in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, with Itoshiki claiming the existence of a "hidden" fifth panel - darkness. Meanwhile, Yonkoma is the only form of comics Chiri approves, and she demands Harumi draw her Doujinshi as a yokoma for her, after complaining that it has "No climax, no point, no meaning".
  • Monster Musume has the "Monster Musume: I ♥ Monster Girls" Spin-Off, 4 anthology volumes of yonkoma drawn by various artists based on the series. The official website even has a yonkoma fanart section, but there's no official English translations of those.
  • Death Note had a number of (notably goofier than the actual manga) versions published in Akamaru Jump and later in the encyclopedic thirteenth volume.
  • Frequently show up in the bonus pages of Fullmetal Alchemist volumes ("Four Panel Omakes", "4-Koma Theatre" in the anime). Hiromu Arakawa has mentioned liking the bonus pages better than the actual manga.
  • Aoi House 4-koma appeared in Newtype USA for awhile. They're reprinted in the backs of the graphic novels.
  • The fourth volume of Yotsuba&! had a chapter entitled "Yotsuba to 4koma". It told a short story in 4koma, in contrast to the rest of the manga's page format, and was about even less than usual.
  • The Hayate the Combat Butler manga sometimes has yonkoma at the beginnings and/or the ends of some chapters.
  • The supplemental mangas for Lyrical Nanoha include several hundred pages of these among their omakes. Essentially, they flanderize the Hell out of the characters (Fate's affection for Nanoha is elevated to Stalker with a Crush levels, Hayate is a full-on cosplay pervert, etc.) and run with it. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Battle Angel Alita has been including a few of these in the backs of the graphic novels for 'Last Order'. Usually, they're gags on an element in that story arc ("What if Zazie hadn't been backing Alita up against Toji" (she dies), "Where does Alita's Elbogen-Blatt go when not in use?" (her boobs), etc).
  • Several volumes of the Harukanaru Toki no Naka de manga have the regular Super-Deformed Omake done in the Yonkoma format.
  • The 100th chapter of Eyeshield 21 was "Yonkoma Half-Time Show", a series of sets of themed gag yonkoma.
  • Genshiken usually has one or two Yonkoma under the topic "Moments Later" making additional jokes after each chapter.
  • Most of the Gundam manga by Koichi Tokita include Yonkoma with lots of crossovers and jokes. Confusingly (and irritatingly), Tokyopop chose to completely retranslate the strips in the Gundam Wing spinoff G-Unit (AKA Last Outpost), mostly using jokes lifted wholesale from Arnold Schwarzenegger movies and used wildly out of context.
  • In Lucky Star (itself a Yonkoma strip), Hiyori mentions that she sometimes draws Yonkoma. (Hiyori, incidentally, contains some Author Avatar elements.)
  • The first chapter of Kimochi No Katachi, but not the following two chapters.
  • In Psychic Squad, from the chapter 104 onwards, before the beginning of every chapter there are always two supplemental comical four-panel strips enclosed, often with useful additional information about characters, interesting back stories, or even introductions to later plot arcs in the main part of the manga.
  • The 5th-last Negima! Magister Negi Magi chapter followed this format for three pages.
  • Ah! My Goddess manga has a companion Omake The Adventures Of Mini Goddesses, about attics of 3 goddesses "in convenient petite size" and their rat friends. It has also been adapted as a 48-episode Gag Series.
  • Weaponized and used as a gag in Hoshin Engi during the manga-only fight between a drunk Taikobo and Raishinshi: the latter tries to attack the former, before realizing that the the vignette layout has changed into a Yonkoma format. Supushan even refers to this as the "Yonkoma Technique". Raishinshi's not amused.

Video Games

  • Super Robot Wars has a huge number of 4-Koma that are made for each game, usually making fun of characters, noting similarities between series, or one character trying to imitate another, often with disastrous results, and other random gags.
  • Ape Escape 2 has a number of Yonkoma that you can unlock and view.
  • Castlevania has a whole bunch done for the newer games, mostly the DS games and onwards. The only ones officially translated thus far are for Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia and The Dracula X Chronicles. Apparently, Dracula goes grocery shopping and even keeps dirty magazines.
  • A complete volume collection of yonkoma exists for Breath of Fire III, as well as two separate yonkoma collections for Breath of Fire IV (the latter including a literal yonkoma anthology). This is especially remarkable as III has never had a formal Comic-Book Adaptation and IV only had an anthology collection (which included both serious stories and longer-length Omake) until 2007 (fully seven years after the original video game was released). And yes, the official Comic-Book Adaptation of Breath of Fire IV (recently completed by Mag Garden) also continues the tradition of Breath of Fire-related yonkoma in its "Behind The Cover Comics" (which are, logically enough, printed under the dust covers). Most are flat out parody Omake of events in the manga (which is considerably Bloodier and Gorier than in the game, hence much Mood Whiplash could occur) but the very final yonkoma printed as a "Behind The Cover Comic" featured Won-qu and A-tur—two shishi or foo-dogs—discussing what they would do now that there was no empire or emperor.
  • WarioWare: D.I.Y. features a comic maker that lets you create your own yonkoma.
  • Golden Sun has the 4-Koma Gag Battle.
  • Granblue Fantasy has a series of comic strips titled "Grand Blues!", which are accessible in-game.
  • The manual for Snowboard Kids 2 featured yonkoma that described the items. Atlus's English localization thankfully translated these, as they also did with the "Dodging Projectiles" and "Parachute" yonkoma of the original game's manual.
  • Bonk (or "PC Genjin" in Japanese) actually appeared first in a regular 4koma feature in Gekkan PC Engine magazine. The original strips were digitized for the PC Engine Hyper Catalog 3 Super CD-ROM.
  • Fortune Summoners: There are some 4koma about the characters, online at the official site: http://lizsoft.jp/4koma/.
  • Puyo Puyo. Compile-era ones exist based off of Tsu and SUN, as well as a Rulue-centric one named 4-koma Gag Battle Spicy. Also, a Sega-era 4-koma exists for Puyo Puyo Fever.
  • The continue screen for the Capcom arcade game Eco Fighters features a 4-koma, where the player character's ship plummets to the ground of a nearby planet, and sees a vision of a beautiful girl in a bikini. Whether she turns out to be an ad from a billboard or a real girl that the hero barely misses depends on whether you continue or not.

Webcomics

  • In an omake from Megatokyo, Piro talks about why the comics had their then-rigidly-true four square panel layout. it was a compromise between Fred wanting to do a 4-koma, and Largo Rodney wanting to do a four-across American gag strip. Of course, both the format and Largo are long gone.
  • Sequential Art is generally a Yonkoma, but now and again the author splits the single panel into anywhere from 2 to 6 subpanes.
  • Some Consolers single-page strips are in this format (when they're not 3- or 2-panel...)
  • Leif & Thorn during the 4koma in Black storyline.

Web Original

  • This entry wouldn't be complete without the Gaijin 4-Koma (a.k.a. the "Reaction Guys" or the "IGN dudes"), a Memetic Mutation of two photographs of one group of IGN reporters reacting to different exhibits at a video game convention with... different amounts of excitement. The meme traditionally represents the IGN gaijin as staring impassively at one photograph or scene, and then shouting with excitement at either an interesting development from the first scene, or something else that's much more interesting.
  • What do you get when you use the Souchaku Henshin action figures from Kamen Rider to make a quick-and-easy series of Yonkoma? The meaningfully-named Soucha-Koma, of course.


Alternative Title(s): Fourkoma

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