Category Archives: Premium/Featured Posting

Folklore influences in Badirfilay

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I’ve always felt fascination for themes related to death and the dark side of people and things. I’m not an emo, goth or anything related. I think it’s something more like anthropological/psychological curiosity. That’s probably because I used to talk about death in my stories.

Well, Badirfilay is about this, actually, and more than death itself, it’s the feeling it brings to the ones who are left behind; the ones alive.

Death can have many faces but I’ve based my story on some legends and a compilation of stories I’ve been hearing and reading all my life. Folk stories of different countries and cultures, small stories, religious stuff and even personal things. I don’t think there’s an unique vision about that theme… Death and mystery can be treated from many different views. Every religion has its own way to explain what happens once we die. I have my own opinion about this, but I didn’t want to put my beliefs here. I thought doing Badirfilay and focusing on death in Badirfilay as an eclectic thing, would be more interesting.

It’s still quite early to talk about this because you’ve seen just a peek of it in the story.

At the point, some myths appeared already:

Banshees: A very interesting character in Celtic folk stories.

Greek Mythology, Kharon, the river Styx, and Sirens: Not the beautiful, friendly mermaids fairy tales have sold to us. No, the real mermaids as they are: creepy, dangerous, and probably not so beautiful, but enchanting in fact.

Genies of the 72 hours after Death: The belief that people “can be resurrected within those 72 hours”. It was a legend I heard when I was a child that impressed me so much especially because I heard it in a very sad moment of my life. That story is the basis of Badirfilay. I’ll talk about this later, when this shows clearer in the story.

Edgar Allan Poe: His obsession for young beauty perishing. Young ladies dying. A very common theme used in Badirfilay too.

Post Mortem Photography: A FASCINATING thing I discovered many years ago. The most beautiful and sad way to retain the memory of a dead beloved. Now seen as a creepy bizarre thing, but in those times, it was almost the only way to keep a visual tangible memory of those who died. Beautiful. In my story, they are used by the Docs to receive the information about clients to be revived.

As I said, you’ll be seeing many things related to those mysterious subjects. Some will be very well known by you (like vampires, for example) and some other are very anecdotal. But everything will be used to give the story that darkness it requires. It’s funny, for me, it is. Lots of work to put together and make them fit, actually, but I think it will be very interesting.I hope you’ll think the same. Thanks for reading!

 

Staff note: Badirfilay’s latest chapter has our hero Valdemar meet a mythical three-headed dog! Go check it out if you haven’t already.

Ninona

About Ninona

Hello! I'm a freelance illustrator and comic artist from Barcelona who enjoys (needs) coffee. My current comic is the steampunk inspired Badirfilay.

Favourite Storytelling Techniques in Comics

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In reading comics, I’m not really conscious with the techniques on how they are portrayed, or the subtleties they possessed. Rather, they manifest in my mind retroactively, which, I must say, a shame. As long as a comic has good story, good characterization  good art, I’d read it.

But there are just some things I won’t pass up. Techniques or styles in storytelling that make my heart go doki-doki ( Japanese onomatopoeia for heartbeat) with awe and admiration. Some of these are the following:

(Caveat: I may confuse technique with style, and vice versa, and rather concern more with narrative than anything, so this may apply to other forms of narrative medium as well.) 

1. Cliffhanger. I have a love-hate relationship with cliffhangers. On the one hand, it is a great way to keep your readers at the edge of their seats, begging for more. On the other hand, HJASDHVIGUIVCNSICFOSIKMDSAIJSAFIKOJJNMOREMOREMOREICAN’TWAITFORTHENEXTCHAPTERGIVEITNOW.

cliffhanger

Not the best example, but it’ll do.

2. Point-of-View. In a visual medium, employing multiple points-of-view is common, for a wider breadth of narration. But a clever timing of shifting a point-of-view helps greatly in moments of suspense, or when holding back information for future dramatic reveal. Or, you know. Cliffhangers.

pov shift

From Yvette’s heart-stopping (!!) situation suddenly shifting to a mundane scene with Dimitri. :3

3. Panelling. There is an art to panelling. Done right, you can utilize panels in creating nuances. Take this, for example. A large panel means emphasis, means something significant. Aside from Hiromu Arakawa’s brilliant wording in the dialogue, placing Selim in close-up in a large panel indicates that he is significant to warrant such attention and to provide subtle foreshadowing.

4. Tones that complement the atmosphere. If a comic has a light-hearted story, then it would do well to give it tones and shades of grey (no, not that shades of grey ಠ_ಠ), or bright colors  if we’re talking about comics printed in, well, color  If a comic has a dark story, then blacks and/or dark tones/colors would fit the mood. It’s about mise en scène. DOGS: Bullets and Carnage is a fine example of a comic that makes use of more blacks and fewer tones and minimalism to give off a film-noir-like impression.

5. Trope Deconstruction. Ahahaha haha ha. *dies*

 

thumbnailing

In conclusion: I try to apply such techniques in my own comics. But alas.

 

P.S. Some of you are already aware of my utter loathing towards (using!) shoujo bubbles. Haha. Well, there are two exceptions: 1) if they’re used sparingly; and most especially 2) if they’re used for the lulz.

archiloquy

About archiloquy

Part-time student, full-time worker, all-time procrastinator. Draws comics in her free time, and some other things. Author and artist of Quickening and Skiagraphia.

Stylized Team Fortress 2 Inspired Art

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Wastelands author Gemma Sheldrake (Petitecreme) recently did these stylized interpretations of Team Fortress 2′s video game character classes. If you play the game don’t forget to comment on which items below caught your eye!

You can check out more of Petitecreme’s work on MangaMagazine and tumblr.

powil

About powil

Hi, I'm a community manager at Mangamagazine.net

Artist Tip: Protecting Yourself with Content Rating System (joke)

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How will you defend yourself if your comic causes the death of anyone who reads it?

*This is meant as a joke post and should not be taken for legal advice!

If your comic ever caused the death of anyone who reads it, just make sure you have a warning on it or a label from the Content Rating System (CRS). This warning protects you from getting in trouble!

Always put “Warning: The content of the comic has caused unknown deaths, you have been warned”

Putting a CRS warning has the same effect as saying “I warned you and now you have to pay the consequences”.  A related example could be a cigarette advertisement. Usually in every cigarette ad, you always see a warning that it is harmful to your health. But have you ever wondered why people who already knew that smoking is harmful to their health still smoke? In the end they end up having lung cancer and the cigarette manufacturing company continues to make big profits, ironic isn’t it?
Once you warn somebody, it is their decision to whether or not they will take the risk.  I assure you, you won’t get in trouble if you have CRS.
What is CRS?

Content Rating System is used on TV Broadcast, movies, comic books or computer games.  It is like a warning sign. As long as your comic has this rating system warning on it, if someone suddenly spontaneously explode and die because of the comic you are safe because you already warned them in the first place.

Did you do the right thing by just warning people?

This is a very philosophical question and it’s pretty hard to explain; if you think about it, to know someone really died on reading your work, would you really feel bad inside? Carrying the burden? Would it be ethical?  It’s hard to move on once you knew the bad news. But you did warn them, from the beginning, so just go look for another new reader!  After all, it is the internet and there are many more where they came from!

thanks for reading

Arme-chan

About Arme-chan

The name is Arme-chan, the author and artist of Knife Brigade and I'm an artist that has an inferiority complex so bare with me okay.. A.K.A I'm theannoyingfruitloop

Manga-making Inspiration: Vampires, Death, and Immortality

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holidays

The Fear of the Great Unknown: Vampires, Death, and Immortality

An Affliction Born from Pestilence and Despair…

 

What’s so Interesting About Vampires Anyway?

Hello, everyone! LOOM here. I’m the creator of Vampire Fetish in the Premium section of MangaMagazine.net. Let’s cut straight to the point! I get a lot of questions about vampires. What attraction could I possibly find in this tired old genre? Why do vampires resurface  in our culture again and again, wearing new faces and hypnotizing audiences anew?

I’m a big lover of culture, mythology, and history.  One day, the natural curiosity took over and I began to pore over folklore. I wasn’t just interested in vampires, but all creatures of the undead and all creatures that supposedly prey on human beings. I wanted to look not just for stories from Northeastern and Southeastern Europe, but to find all sorts of cultural accounts from all sorts of places. Revenants, vrykolakas, strigoi, you name it. Blood-sucking spirits go back as far as Mesopotamia. I find this interesting. It says something about how people fear death and darkness. It actually wasn’t until I took to history books and anthropological manifestos that I began to appreciate just how much our never-ending dance with the idea of vampires is tied up with our views of life and death itself.

looming eddy

What IS it about vampires? They just won’t go away! Share your own thoughts in the comments!

 

When Fear Breeds Imagination: The Roots of the Modern Vampire

The underlying basis of tales of the dead rising up from the grave is the great fear of the unknown. People inherently fear death. This is why notions of the undead and fantasies of immortality have remained with us in our myths and stories for so many centuries. One of our oldest known stories, The Epic of Gilgamesh, features a king called Gilgamesh  who, after losing his best friend Enkidu, seeks out a way to become immortal. Fear of death and fascination with immortality have been with us since our very earliest stories.

Vampires in their rawest forms originate from a very basic human emotion: fear. Fear controls us, enthralls us, limits us, and expands our imaginations. When we strip away the shiny facade of Hollywood and dig deep beneath the surface, we travel back in time to a place where we find ordinary circumstances paired with extraordinary fears. These fears spurred the myth of the vampire, a creature who crawls from the grave to hunt in the dead of night, taking the lives of loved ones and innocent passersby.

The mere notion of the creature rendered small villages frozen in fear and left them prone to hysteria. Disease was a common culprit. The spread of death due to contagion took a heavy toll on small, isolated villages. Contamination devastated families and at times truly made it seem as if the deceased were reaching back to claim their living family members one by one. Today, we may not always appreciate the paralyzing terror of disease outbreak, but I have a feeling if a serious outbreak were to occur worldwide, we would all remember quickly.

Plague Rats

In times of commonplace plague, our fears were much more poignant than they are in today’s world. Do you think we take modern medical advancements for granted?

 

Fending Off the Fiend: Vampire Repellent & Killing Techniques

Over time, a variety of interesting tactics were contrived to combat these creatures of the undead. Villagers would dig up bodies and stake them with sharp materials shaped from pure, sweet-smelling wood or plant materials. These materials might have included the sharp thorns of the hawthorn branch or the strong wood of the ash tree. Strong-smelling substances like garlic were favored to “keep away the undead.” The reason for this is obvious: strong smelling substances combat the foul odor of death and decay.

When bodies were suspected of vampirism, they were dug up and inspected for signs of it: suppleness, robustness, swelling, and a dark black or red tinge to the skin.  If deemed a vampire, the body would be staked, but the body–red, swollen, and rotting with gaseous decay–would often shriek when pierced. Although the sound may have been a natural phenomenon caused by the release of gases and fluids, it must have been indescribably terrifying for the poor blokes carrying out the deed.

loom-stake

Stakes are a classic weapon used against vampires. Originally, stakes and sharp thorns were thought to “bind” a vampire to his grave and prevent him from walking at night.

 

Now and Then: What Vampires Mean to Us

When we read very old accounts from the sixteenth century and earlier, we’re struck by how silly some of these “vampire accounts” sound to modern ears.  But it bears remembering that times have changed. Fears have changed. We now know so much more than our friends and families did long ago.

That’s not to say that many of the old notions aren’t outlandish. It can at times be tempting to imagine these outrageous claims as real. For example, many vampires in older tales are defeated by being occupied with mundane tasks, like counting rice grains or untying knots.

In the case of the German Nachzehrer,the creature’s hands are decayed and look eaten away, so according to the folk tale, he must have gnawed off his hands while he slept in the grave.  In Norway, some inhabitants thought, “There is noise pelting the roof outside my home, so the vampire must be stomping on it. ” Quite a scapegoat, that old vampire! One can see that, if judging the vampire alone, he may at times seem horrifying, but he may also at times seem to be suffering from a bad case of obsessive-compulsive disorder!

For me, it was this point I seized upon for writing. It’s not a far jump to attribute the behaviors of folkloric vampires and related creatures of the undead to manias. What if, I thought. What if the trauma of death twisted these beings so much that they developed strange ticks? That leaves a lot of room for comedy and horror.  They become at once pitiable and more formidable, desperate to reach whatever goals they fixate upon. Have you ever tried to talk to someone who is truly insane?  You don’t easily get through to them like you do in the movies.  There is something unsettling and heartbreaking about that.

Counting

Vampires can be distracted by mundane tasks…like counting. Does it make anyone think of The Count from Sesame Street? I wonder if the creator of that meant it as a pun on The Count’s title of nobility or an allusion to traditional vampires? What do you think? Share your thoughts with me!

 

This Won’t Cover Even a Fraction of What’s Out There on Vampires…

I hope you enjoyed this small sampling of vampire mythology. The myths and legends are loads of fun to dive into, but be wary of the many entanglements and contradictions you will inevitably find. There are literally hundreds upon thousands of versions of the undead, swirling around and around and crossing over with witches, werewolves, and ghosts. And of course, depending on the context, country, and time period, the very fears that birthed vampire legends change over time, and these fears morph into new monsters with new faces and new identities. The modern vampire has expanded to encompass not only fear, but also the grotesque, the exciting, the sexual, and the forbidden. He has even been humanized in many stories.

That’s all I have for today. I hope you’ll come visit me sometime! I do love to chat. Happy Halloween, Have a Safe Bonfire Night, and most of all, Happy Comicking! May you reach for the stars and find inspiration in even the smallest moments!

All my love,
LOOM

Grouppic

LOOM

About LOOM

LOOM is an independent comic creator and lover of all things comics. She writes and draws the YA Urban Fantasy comic Vampire Fetish here at MangaMagazine.net and assists in running the club Manga-Apps.

Halloween, Ghosts, Dolls and Scary Stuffs

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Happy Halloween everybody! Are you having fun? Skeletons, ghosts and tombs everywhere those days!

And who else on MangaMagazine to talk about that scary stuff? As you surely know, in our comic, The Soul Chaser, ghosts, cemeteries and haunted houses play a huge part. But we´re not going to talk about that, as would be usual… we come to talk about something related, but no less scary and perfect for Halloween: DOLLS!

Why dolls? Because most of you have told us that the possessed doll appearing on the first chapter of The Soul Chaser freaks you out.

Chapter 1 and 2. What a difference, isn´t it?

Yes, we know, maybe it´s a bit cliche, but the proofs speak by themselves: it keeps working. If you don´t think so, look at the increasing number of scary dolls we can find on the market: Living Dead Dolls, Little Apple Dolls and such.

Probably all of you have read stories or seen movies including dolls coming to life, and instead of playing the role they were supposed to do (as a princess, a baby, a clown), just aim for chaos, destruction and even murder. “Child´s Play”, “Poltergeist”,“Halloween”, “Saw” or even “Doll Master”, a Korean horror film, are only a few examples.

But, contrary to popular belief, fear of dolls doesn’t come from movies – it´s something a bit older. Freud himself claimed that children fantasize about dolls coming to life . But why so many adults keep having goosebumps when seeing them?

Some people say they are afraid of dolls because dolls are too realistic. Others have suffered a trauma. Others say dolls look like corpses to them. And others just say their imagination is too active and they have watched too many movies. Truth be told, you don´t need to watch any of them to feel slightly uncomfortable in the presence of a Victorian doll. We feel like that ourselves! Yes, despite drawing our comic!

Some antique dolls have bright crystal eyes that seemed to follow you across the room; others showed their teeth in a disturbing smile, and some others even had moving eyelids to close and open their eyes. Creepy, isn´t it? No wonder many people are afraid of them!

Another possible explanation is that we tend to think of the Victorian era as gloomy, an era where death and diseases were the order of the day. And unfortunately, it´s partly true, as infant and child mortality was tremendously high. Only two or maybe three out of five children reached adulthood… and those were lucky ones. So many dolls remained as mementos of their deceased little owners. Maybe we still think of them that way.
Or maybe we just associate dolls with big old mansions, dark and dusty, where our imagination doesn´t need much encouragement…

HAPPY HALLOWEEN EVERYBODY!

 

Studio Kawaii

About Studio Kawaii

Hi! Ana and Meru here. We´re Spanish, twins, and the team behind The Soul Chaser here on MangaMagazine.net!

A Spanish Ghost Tale – El monte de las ánimas

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There is a tale I used to read when I was young which I always remember on Halloween night. The tale was written by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer, a Spanish romantic writer (famous for his poetry) when he is living in Soria (a northern Spanish town) and was published in the newspaper “El Contemporáneo” in November the 7th in the year 1861. The tale was “El monte de las ánimas“, something I can translate to “The spirit’s mountain”. You can read it complete in Spanish here and in English here. I read it when I was young and I love this ghost tale… Let me tell you what it’s about.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the author

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, the author

There is no date in the legend, but the context and references indicate that, probably the story occurred during the XV century at Soria, a northern town and province in Spain crossed by Duero river. In this tale, Alonso, the youngest son of Count Borges was having fun in a hunting party with his cousin Beatriz, sister of Count Alcudiel and both their parents and servants.

It wasn’t late but Alonso unexpectedly demanded to return. When Beatriz asked why, he told her that they were at the Spirit’s Mountain and it’s supposed to be enchanted. He told her about an ancient story about a time when the King summoned the Templars to defend the city on the side next to the bridge over Duero river. That was an offense to his Castilian nobles, who thought they would have been able to defend their beloved city alone. The Templars closed the mountain, and allowed no one to hunt there, except themselves. Soon the rivalry between the Templars and the nobles of the town turned to hate, and hate soon led to battle. The local nobles took their horses and weapons and assaulted the mountain and Templars’ chapel.  Both nobles and knights died in a bloody battle in the mountain. All corpses were buried in the mountain the following day, but many of them were partially devoured by wolves. After that, the mountain and the Templar’s chapel were abandoned. Since then, every year on All Soul’s Night, it’s said that the souls of the dead come back to continue their battle…

The hunting party returned home and then Alonso and Beatriz started talking. Alonso was secretly in love with her, and he knew she will soon leave and probably he will not see her again. So he wanted to give her a present so she can remember him forever. He expected her to give him a present too, so he can remember her. This is no such a thing as an “innocent” gift, as Beatriz said in the tale: “to accept a gift is to incur an obligation”. It’s like him asking her to be her girlfriend, but in a such “polite” way. She didn’t want to accept, but Alonso convinced her. So she accepted his present, but when he asked about a present from her, she told him she wanted to give him her blue scarf. But she had lost it in the mountain.

Alonso was frigthened about going to the mountain alone to recover the scarf, but he wanted to prove his love for her. She made fun of him in a subtle way, smiling with indifference as he told her his good reason for not going to the mountain this night. Hurt in his pride, Alonso left the house alone to recover the scarf.

The time passes. Beatriz is alone in her room thinking about all those ghost’s stories Alonso told her and started to be worried about him. She cannot sleep. Soon she started to hear noises, steps approached her room and ghostly noises as the wind cries in the window. She covered herself with bed covers and pretended to be asleep. Beatriz was shaking under the blankets and prayed.

The night is over. With the first morning lights she woke up laughting at herself for being scared. And suddenly she saw it… the blue scarf was over her prayer stool, torn and stained with blood.

Later that morning, when the servants opened the door of her room to sadly tell her that Alonso had died in the mountain, devoured by wolves, they found Beatriz pale and rigid. She was dead from fright.

A long time later, a poor hunter who was lost during All Soul’s Night in the Spirit’s Mountain, told a strange tale about skeletal knights, ghosts, and a pale woman wandering Alonso’s tomb barefoot…

Beatriz beign frightened by a ghost.

That’s all. So remember, if you visit Spain, and go to have a walk in the mountain and forest near Soria, be careful if it is All Soul’s Night…

 

Pandapon

About Pandapon

Panda writes, Kamapon draws. We are Pandapon Studio! We're guilty and completely responsible for the manga Midnight Hunters .

“Why are all my Fans Dead?” Numbers vs Readers

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fan /fæn/  noun an enthusiastic devotee, follower, or admirer of a sport, pastime, celebrity, etc. short for fanatic (thank you, dictionary.com)

Fan counts. Follow buttons. Add to favs. Watch.

No matter what they call it, most sites which allow you to host your manga pages and artwork have some sort of system like this in place. It’s designed so that you can follow someone’s progress and be alerted of updates as they happen by becoming their ‘fan’ and vice versa.

Or, that’s how it’s supposed to work.

…All those fans, never to be seen again.

 

Readers Vs Likes

The goal of putting your story up online is to reach an audience. You want other people to read and enjoy your manga… Presumably, anyway. You want people to want to click that fan button and follow your updates. Unfortunately, not everyone has the same intent in mind when they click…

In preparation for this blog post, I asked a range of people for some of the reasons which compel them to click a fan button, and some of the reasons they think other people do so for them. These are a few of the reasons I was given:

Reasons why people click a fan button:

  • They like your manga and want to follow it
  • They are interested in the way you draw and want to follow your work and growth as an artist
  • They were asked to
  • They feel obligated after being linked to a page
  • Their friends with similar followed you so they feel they might be interested too
  • They are your friend
  • They want a follow back
  • They see it as a "like"

There are infinite reasons that a person can click that button. Unfortunately, not everyone who clicks it will always follow up on actually reading your manga. On top of that, various things can get in the way of reading the manga and webcomics you do enjoy. It isn’t always easy to keep up to date.

How many manga are you a fan of on this site? How many of those do you regularly read?

 

Silent Readers

Of course, not every reader will have much to say about your work. The amount of readers who remain silent compared to those who will actively comment to you about your work is usually starkly disproportionate. Sometimes they can’t think of a worthwhile comment. Sometimes they’re too shy to talk to you. Sometimes they’re too busy to say anything.

But they’re there.

A few ways to involve them include:

Start a poll – Who is the most popular character? Who do they think will win the next battle? Who should be with who? Even if they don’t comment, it only takes a couple of seconds to cast a vote.

Ask for feedback – Sometimes readers respond best when they have a question to answer. Ask for opinions on the last chapter, or theories on what is happening in story arcs.

Run a contest – Contests can be tricky. Set the deadline too soon and people will be too pressed for time to enter. Extend it too long and people may forget about it all together. But contests can be a good way to involve readers, especially if the prize on offer is worthwhile.

Online Store – Sometimes, readers who don’t otherwise comment may be happy to show their support with their wallets. If you have the means, why not open an online store? Start with a few small items, maybe even a POD volume of your manga. If sales take off, there’s no reason why you can’t expand later on.

Interactive Omake – “Omake”, or ‘extras’, are something like bonus strips, artwork or author anecdotes dotted between manga chapters. Why not invite guests either to appear in them or send them in for inclusion?

 

Avoiding Discouragement

As long as you’re enjoying your work, it doesn’t matter if you have 10 fans or 10,000, but sometimes it’s difficult to remember this. When you see a mediocre manga getting triple the fancount of your work, or when your friends are bragging about their apparent poularity while you’ve only got a couple of fans, it’s very easy to feel down about it. Numbers aren’t everything, but every now and then they can be nice to have.

“Why are they getting all the attention when I work just as hard? If not, even harder!” Under exposure, little to no advertising, niche-y stories…All of these can factor in. A lack of numbers compared to another person does not mean your story is worse! Ask yourself why you started drawing this story in the first place? Nobody draws a manga with the intent for it to be terrible (unless you’re a trollin’). Was it to see a story come to life, or was it to make yourself popular/rich?

If the answer is the latter, this may not be the hobby for you. But if the answer is the former, then you owe it to yourself and your potential readers not to let the numbers get in the way of delivering the best work you possibly can. To get anywhere, you need to get past your insecurities, and get on with the job.

 

In conclusion, numbers are just that. Numbers. It’s your fans, the ones who come back even every now and again to read your work who count for the most. Isn’t even three loyal fans far better than three hundred “likes”?

Maybe, if there’s a manga you’re reading and enjoy, you could take a minute or so to leave the creator a few words of appreciation for their hard work?

Manga is not a popularity contest. But sometimes, a single encouraging comment can make the world of difference to someone.

xxVervain

 ps. I want to credit my associate for ‘volunteering’ to be depicted in the panels. Thank you, loyal associate~.

Vervain

About Vervain

I, the shimmering Vervain, have been creating comics and manga ever since I felt like it. When I'm not doing this or something of the sort, I am busy drinking coffee.

What IS Shounen?

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Dragonball, One Piece, Naruto, Bleach.


What do these all have in common? SHOUNEN.


Most of us know of and read the series listed above, but What does Shounen mean? What are some common misunderstandings of the Shounen demographic?
What IS Shounen?

What Shounen Means


The kanji for Shōnen (少年), shonen, or shounen, literally means “few years”, or “boy”, the complete phrase can mean “young person’s comic” and can be from elementary school through grade school age. It is used in everyday conversation when referring to the period of youth, also including legal wording referencing youth, with no regard to gender. Shōnen manga is one of, if not the most popular genre of manga. One popular type of Shounen manga is battle manga, Which are generally about action/fighting but often contains a sense of humor and strong growing friendship-bonds between the characters.

Common Misunderstandings of Shounen


The biggest and most annoying misunderstanding of Shounen manga is that people believe or think that all Shounen are battle manga. Nothing could be further from the truth! Which leads nicely into the next subheading.

What IS Shounen?


To really understand the Shounen demographic you have to know what true Shounen is. A true Shounen isn’t just a battle manga, neither is it simply a manga for boys. A true Shounen is about following ones dreams, having goals and values, cherishing the value of friendship! The adventure of life! A true Shounen teaches those who read it all of these things and more. And most deal with a variety of subjects. From One Piece to Death Note have ways of telling a story unique to Shounen. The differences between many Shounen titles varies from small to large, we have Action Shounen like Bleach and Toriko, Adventure Shounen like One Piece and Fairy Tail, Mystery Shounen like Detective Conan and Death Note, Slice of Life Shounen like Bakuman and Yotsubato, and even Romance Shounen like Eureka Seven and Busou Renkin.

At the end of the day, Shounen isn’t a limited genre like most may think or assume. It is a wide demographic that enlists endless possibilities for authors and artists alike, with the ability to take readers to other worlds, experiencing the adventure with these characters! So next time you see a Shounen, don’t be quick to assume “it’s just another battle manga.” ;)

 

Matsuyama Takeshi

About Matsuyama Takeshi

I am an independant Mangaka from Toronto, Canada and the author of the manga series, Okamirai 狼雷.

Weekly Artist Post: Delivering a Pitch

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As a storyteller, I go around making up stories and writing scenes in my own head about people around me almost the entire time that I’m not actually sitting down to draw. That enormous  amount of writing in my head makes it easier for me to predict many happenings and outcomes or relates to similar ones so I feel like I’m confident in facing whatever, as dull as that makes a daily life.

Although, when it comes to the emotional actions and responses, it’s impossible to predict and be prepared no matter how ready you think you are for a certain situation. The heart works that way.

“So, what kind of stories do you write?” he asked. And that, was never on my mind. After a quick search in my head for a similar situation, I couldn’t find any. Usually I think of me delivering my pitch to an audience or a publishing house and there is a kind of manipulative way of doing that, after knowing a bit about the market and what fans like to read. Also, I always have the art with me to go along.

But this is different.

This is a person I admire, that I know little about and who is asking me about the most treasured thing I have in a situation that defines me as only a writer, rather than an artist, which isn’t how I usually pick to prove myself.

So, something witty, short and straight to the point to tell him about my story in the next 40 seconds, if the elevator didn’t stop midway, that is.

“You ever wonder about problems?” I suddenly blurted. ‘Oh really, is that my pitch?!’ I wanted to say something that will tackle his interest and make him curious about the topic before giving away my pitch, and I end up with that!

“Like, my problems? sure.” he answered.

“Uhh, yeah. Your problems and others. I do that often out of interest.” Jee! am I saying I’m interested in people’s misfortunes? “oh, I mean, I’m interested in human’s psychology so I often think about people actions, reactions and what not.”

7 floors away.

“That makes me a boring nerdy person I guess, haha.” I continued.

“haha, no at all!”

“I’m writing a story about the reason of  most problems in humans; internal and external ones. I think, that most struggles we face come from the insides of us; the endless heart-mind battles and debates.

Haha, don’t think It’s not too philosophical. It has characters with stories facing various struggles; intense and normal daily ones along with beautiful encounters events and relationships that help along the way.”

2 floors away.

“I’m sorry this doesn’t sound too awesome… not that I’m saying I am! It’s just that I usually show my book or sketchbook while talking and ummm,  I guess I’ll go with what a friend once described the story…”

*DING* we’re in the parking floor

“what’s that?” he questioned.

“It’s the life that nobody wants, but the bond that everyone craves” I answered.

Elevator doors open and we start walking out.

“oh! that sounds like a good pitchline!”

“Haha I know right? I liked it too” I wonder if he means it’s better than the gibberish I told him before. Ehhh, I always know not to talk too much!

“So, that life that nobody wants, huh?” he said smirking. “That sounds intense, alright”

“Haha, keep your eyes on the second part of the line~”

Separating ways, all I was thinking of was;

I wonder how well I did, how well I sold my story to him. maybe he’d check it. But wait! he didn’t ask about the website! oh. maybe he’s gonna look it up online. yeah… maybe he’s a good stalker.

oh man, I gotta stop.

—-

Thank you for reading~ <3

dee Juusan

About dee Juusan

Hello~ I'm a self-published manga artist who likes to write stories with monologues, emotions and deep inner thoughts of characters. Slice of my life with a little bit of magic is my cup of tea. Grey is... is my current spoiled baby~