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A similar thing happens with comics; The New York Times's review of Art Spiegelman's WWII memoir "Maus" started with the line "Maus is not a comic".

This was meant as praise, because "obviously", if it's any good, it can't be called a comic book. (Then, of course, the term "graphic novel" got traction, and immediately got misused so often that it's now completely meaningless.)

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The word comic comes with expectations about graphics style and content, same as manga has some expectations (through that has more variety of stuff). That is quite practical for people like me who don't like the comic style, but do enjoy differently painted pictures with bubbles.

Does not mean it must somehow inherently superior, it is more of attempt to sell to people who are aware of how it looks like usually and that they usually dont like it.

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