TR: The Internation Success of Manga. Creation of the Manga "Coping Mechanism" with Digital Tools

The International Success of Manga Creation of the Manga “Coping Mechanism” with Digital Tools

abstract “Creation of the Manga Coping Mechanism“ is a project that showcases the process of creating a Manga, explaining the development of the characters, the story, and the art.

This project is split into two parts. First, there’s a theoretical part where I study the international success of Manga, the reasons behind its diverse audience and its appeal to other comic industries, explaining its genres in relation to its readership as well as defining a clear structure of each genre’s most popular work.

Secondly, there’s a part that’s focused on the more creative aspects of this project which are creating a Manga and developing its story and characters. I explain my brainstorming process and how I apply the structure I’ve studied from the most popular works into making a Manga that is attractive to its target audience, documenting the artistic process as well.

I also made an Artbook that shows all the concept art behind this project to let people know that comics have an extensive artistic process behind them, as well as encouraging other aspiring artists to make original works and create characters and stories.

contents 1. Introduction

1.1. Reasons for picking

1.2. Objectives

1.3. Methodology

1.4. Starting point and hypothesis 2. Core

2.1. Theoretical framework

2.1.1. What is Manga?

2.1.2. Genres in Manga 2.2. Practical framework

2.2.1. Creating my Manga: Where do I begin?

2.2.2. Script and storyboarding: The Webcomic format

2.2.3. Inking and coloring process in Clip Studio Paint

2.2.4. Online publication 3. Conclusions 4. Bibliography 5. Special thanks 6. Annex: Art Book

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1. introduction

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1.1. reasons for picking Ever since I was a child, I dreamt of being an artist. My first source of inspiration for art was animated cartoons on TV. I would stay up late without telling my parents and watch Cartoon Network, for example. My favorite had always been the shows with darker tones, such as Samurai Jack and The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy.

I soon discovered Japanese animations, known as Anime, which are visually more detailed than cartoons. It’s a style of animation that pays attention to details such as: • The movement of everything on the screen, whether it’s small details, such as clothing folds or background elements like leaves.

• The realistic animation of the hair, the hands… The body movement feels dynamic and makes the characters look like real people.

• Very complex background art which appears to be photorealistic in some cases.

• The animation of the faces: there’s a big amount of detail in the eyes, the eyebrows, the mouth, the face wrinkles… Here lies the core of this animation style: the facial expressions.

• Not just this, but the stories and the characters tend to be more emotional and complex and are made to reach the heart of the viewer in a way that most cartoons do not.

1. “Samurai Jack”; 2.“The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy”; 3. Boku no Hero Academia, 2016, anime adaptation of Horikoshi Kouhei’s manga; 4. Kimi no Na Wa, 2016, based on Makoto Shinkai’s work.

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Despite this, the first Anime I ever watched was one aired on Cartoon Network as well called Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo made by Yoshio Sawai and later adapted into Anime by Toei Animation, a Japanese Animation studio. This Anime featured absurd comedy referring constantly to Japanese Pop culture, as well as an extravagant main character whose strength depended on his nose hair.

Such a strange Anime was what drew me into wanting to see more of this kind of animation.

When I began watching more Anime, I eventually discovered Manga, the source of most of these animated series; they’re the comics many Japanese companies adapt later on into Anime on Television. I started reading more of it, and my wish to become an artist grew even more. I’ve always loved how you could capture so much movement in a still drawing.

I would say the Manga that still inspires me to keep working to this day has been Sailor Moon.

I remember first reading it in elementary school during lunch break; we had a library with many classic comics which were popular. There were Marvel comics, DC, and other works belonging to the American comic industry.

However, despite the stunning artwork and the epicity the style held, the ones that stood out to me were Manga.

There were comics which are now classics among Manga fans, such as Detective Conan, Astroboy… among those was Sailor Moon, whose soft, bright colors and elegant artwork in the cover attracted my eyes. Not just that but it had a female character as a protagonist. Back then, I didn’t see a lot of strong female characters in any kind of cartoon, whether it be a movie, a show, or a book.

To this day, it’s still my favorite Manga since aside from making me want to read more of these comics, it also taught me many life lessons: nothing as superficial as looks, gender or sexuality mattered in Sailor Moon. It really gave me a different perspective on what made a story good or not, and that’s really helped me understand how to make a comic entertaining.

5. Respectively, “Sailor Moon” (Naoko Takeuchi), “Detective Conan” (Gosho Aoyama) and “Astroboy” (Osamu Tezuka).

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1.2. objectives To this day, the immense recognition Manga has gained worldwide for as long as it has been around never ceased to amaze me. Japan doesn’t exactly have an open culture, as it’s very closed and doesn’t really appreciate anything outside its circle. Even so, even if there are artists or comic readers who may not like it, the audience who reads Manga is very wide, whether it be adults or children and they have helped make it more popular to the point where very little people don’t know about it in the context of pop culture. I’ve always been interested in its success among the readers who enjoy it, and thus my objectives are: • Break down the basics of Manga and its structure to grasp what it is that makes it so appealing to the readers, whether they be young or middle-aged of any gender and nationality.

This structure would have the keys to success for a Manga: making iconic characters, an unforgettable story and a narrative that keeps you reading.

• Creating my own Manga using these keys to success in the industry, in the context of a popularity success (having a very diverse audience with varying ages and gender from different countries that enjoys Manga).

• Publish my Manga following this structure and see if it can become popular. This popularity I want it to have is, of course, the one a common successful Manga would have: readers who enjoy it and find it catchy, which leads said readers to continue buying its volumes every time it publishes.

1.3. methodology I will base my hypothesis on Jean-Marie Bouissou’s article for Eurozine in 2008 called “Why has Manga become a global cultural product?”, from which I’ve extracted the following fragments:

7 “In the West, manga has become a key part of the cultural accompaniment to economic globalization. No mere side-effect of Japan’s economic power, writes Jean-Marie Bouissou, Manga is ideally suited to the cultural obsessions of the early twenty-first century.

MULTIPLE PARADOXES Paradox surrounds the growth of manga in western countries such as France, Italy and the USA since the 1970s, and of genres descended from it: anime (cartoons), television serials and video games.

The first paradox is that, whereas western countries have always imagined their culture and values as universal and sought to spread them (if only as a cover for their imperial ambitions), Japan has historically been skeptical about sharing its culture with the world. [...] The second paradox is that manga, in the form it has taken since 1945, is shot through with a uniquely Japanese historical experience. It depicts the trauma of a nation opened at gunpoint in 1853 by the “black ships” of Commodore Matthew Perry in 1853, frog-marched into modernity, and dragged into a contest with the West which ended in the holocaust of Hiroshima. It was this nation’s children – call them “Generation Tezuka” – who became the first generation of mangaka [manga creators]. [...] This defeated nation rebuilt itself through self-sacrificing effort and scarcely twenty years later had become the second economic power of the free world. [...]

At the start of the twenty-first century, Japan has become the world’s second largest exporter of cultural products. Manga has conquered 45 percent of the French comic market, and Shonen Jump – the most important manga weekly for Japanese teenagers, whose circulation reached 6 million during the mid-1990s – has begun appearing in an American version. Manga, long considered fit only for children or poorly-educated youths, is starting to seduce a sophisticated generation of French thirty-somethings. [...]The French baby-boomer generation who grew up in the 1970s, like their Japanese counterparts, had been reading comics since childhood. Every week there was Coeurs Vaillants or Vaillant – the former in communist families, the latter in Catholic households like mine. Then, as we moved to middle school, Tintin and Spirou appeared.

Pilote took charge of those in high school and college. Then… nothing. However for the maturing baby-boomers in Japan, the manga industry invented seinen manga (for those over 20), then manga for workers, particularly white-collar ones, (salaryman manga), and ceaselessly churned out new genres: science fiction, horror, gag manga, series about sport, history, politics, economy, society, and – not least – pornography.

In France, as my generation came of age, we had to make do with comics aimed solely at a particular subculture: elitist, male, at once intellectual, schoolboyish, and more or less rebellious. They were [...] far too sophisticated for the mass market.

6. Shonen Jump #1, 1968; 7. Coeurs Vaillants (1945); 8. Tintin and the Temple of the Sun (1948).

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[...] I followed Pilote to the last issue through university, but long before then my sisters [...] had stopped finding any series which paid the slightest attention to the concerns of young women. On the other side of the world, the “Year 24 Flower Group” offered to Japanese girls of the same age mangas conceived and drawn by young women for young women. These had an aesthetic of their own, an attention to issues such as rape or unwanted pregnancy, and a female perspective on love and sex. In a highly macho society, where it was hard for girls to imagine a relationship on equal terms with a boy, these artists made good use of devices such as cross-dressing heroines, on the model of the celebrated “Lady Oscar” of Riyoko Ikeda’s Rose of Versailles, or relationships between teenage boys (shonen ai), which let the female reader identify either with the more effeminate or with the more virile.

When their readers started working, their publishers invented “OL manga” (office lady manga). When they married they could read “ladies comics”, peppered with rosy romanticism and rather crude shonen ai – a brief escape from the routine of the housewife.

Young Frenchwomen had meanwhile given up on comics. As for the boys, the highbrow culture of Pilote vanished as its readers left university. [...]

Anybody who has also followed this process will understand immediately why manga was destined to become a global product: it had something to offer audiences diverse in age, sex, and taste. Neither French nor American comics could provide such variety. Where are the French cartoonists capable of reviving a famous sextagenarian doctor abandoned at the time of Pilote? One of the sisters who fought with me for Tintin as a girl is now passionate for Syuho Sato’s Say Hello to Black Jack, a gritty view of Japanese hospitals as seen by a young intern. That, at the very least, is a good base to attack the global market. [...] In Japan, the television market was much richer, freer, more inventive and more active than in France, where viewers were confined to public channels until 1984. In the USA everything was private but terribly constrained by the self-censorship of McCarthyism and political correctness. The creative freedom allowed to channels, along with abundant money from sponsors and efficient production by the studios, explains why Japan, during the 1970s, was able to invade the global market for children’s television.

It may be cheaply mass-produced, but Manga is also a high-quality consumer good. [...] As a product of exceptional quality, it brings pleasure to the mind by satisfying six fundamental psychological needs: the will to power, the need for accomplishment, for security, for excitement, for escape, and the need to be distinct. Manga’s success in that respect is due to the exceptional freedom allowed to it since the end of the Second World War, and increasingly to a number of peculiarities of Japanese culture.

(ALMOST) UNCENSORED EXUBERANCE Despite its stereotype, Japanese culture is much less repressed than western cultures, which are constrained by Judeo-Christianity and political correctness. It is much less inhibited about sex.

9. Spirou (1938); 10. The Rose of Versailles, Riyoko Ikeda, 1972

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Phantoms, superstitions, numerous spirits, monsters (friendly and not), and a healthy dose of the irrational all survive in Japan’s collective unconscious, thanks to the country’s late entry into modernity, its ignorance of Cartesian philosophy, and its lack of intolerant monotheism. [...] The taste for tears and for miserable heroes runs so deep that even Prime Ministers – including Yasuhiro Nakasone (1982-7), Ryutaro Hashimoto (1996-8) and Junichiro Koizumi (2001-5), all otherwise regarded as tough men – have been unashamed to weep in public. All this finds its place in Manga, which is consequently much livelier than its French equivalent. The gentle (if a little obsessed) Titeuf, favourite of the French playground, cannot compare to a monkey-tailed boy riding a supersonic cloud, trained by a lecherous old man, accompanied by a tiny pig and a miniature monk – a boy who battles countless enemies, some using enormous farts as chemical weapons; who saves the earth and other planets and then saves the earth again, defeating hundreds of villains; who sees his friends die, dies himself, is brought back to life with them, and dies again; who chats with God and finds, among other things, that He’s not much to write home about; who becomes father and grand-father without really growing up – and so on for 10 000 pages. That’s a summary of Akira Toriyama’s convoluted epic Dragon Ball, world champion of all categories of Manga.

This cultural UFO may have horrified western parents and teachers, but it embedded itself deeply in the youthful imagination worldwide. It was not constrained by that rational heritage of the Enlightenment which is alien to young spirits of every nation and to Japanese cartoonists alike.

Manga fantasies were no more limited by editors and authorities – or at least, they were much less constrained than in the West.

The push for censorship, beginning in the 1960s, came primarily from the omnipresent parent-teacher associations, but without much success. The case of Go Nagai is typical. Nagai is famous in the West as the creator of Goldorak and other giant combat robots but is better known in Japan for his utterly vulgar, bawdy and transgressive series Harenchi Gakuen, which began in 1968. This is set in a “shameless school” (the meaning of the title), where, when they aren’t getting drunk, organizing crooked gambling, or shitting in the corridors, the main business of the boys and the professors is lifting up skirts of (often uncomplaining) girls, stripping them stark-naked and sometimes beating them thoroughly – and getting due retribution from the (not so) “weaker gender”. [...] True, the hero of Dragon Ball marries and procreates in total harmony with the social order. True, the hero of Toru Fujisawa’s international best-seller Great Teacher Onizuka, a boorish rascal with a heart of gold, now a teacher, nobly refuses the advances of schoolgirls offering him their virginity, no matter how much he dreams of them. Make no mistake: manga has its morals! Shonen Jump‘s motto is “Friendship, Effort, Victory”. But these slogans are too conventional to truly affect the reader. [...]

AN AESTHETIC FOR GLOBAL POST-INDUSTRIAL YOUTH: AKIRA, OR DYNAMIC DISILLUSIONMENT Market segmentation, product development, efficient production, lack of censorship, treating universal themes, appeal to the teenage mind – these explanations for manga’s global success are still too limited.

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If we consider precisely when manga went global, and the themes and characters that succeeded on the western market, we can observe the unsatisfied cultural demand that they were meeting. How did the unique historical experience that has nourished the public imagination of postwar Japan become universal? Or, more precisely, how could it approach “universality” in developed nations in post-industrial capitalism? Here, I will briefly consider three significant themes in the global success of manga at the turn of the century: the apocalypse, science, and the individual.

Modern manga was born in the fire of Hiroshima, Hidashi no Gen, an autobiographic Manga written by Keiji Nakazawa, which Saya Shiraishi calls its “original experience”: the story of a group of young orphaned survivors, united by friendship and the will to live, who fight in a post-apocalyptic universe with indomitable hope until a new dawn arises. This traumatic formula recurs in myriad forms in manga and anime. [...]

Over the course of the 1980s, Japanese post-apocalyptic manga changed its character as it fell into the hands of a new generation of mangaka. Born in the 1950s, the last of the baby boomers could be called “generation Otomo”, after the creator of Akira. Their experiences were radically different from the previous generation. They had no direct memory of the war, and their parents had avoided talking to them about it. [...] “Generation Otomo” offered a very different interpretation of the “original experience” from that of Nakazawa. In Otomo’s version, the post-apocalyptic universe is senseless, the heroes wander in chaos, certainties evaporate, the differences between Good and Evil are murky, and the conclusion offers no hope of a better world.

The archetype of this metamorphosis is Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. Kaneda, a pale shadow of the positive heroes of earlier manga, is an escapee from a reformatory wandering in the ruins of Neo-Tokyo. In the face of the apocalypse, he obstinately pursues petty personal aims: avenging the deaths of his companions killed by his former-best-friend-turnedmutant Tetsuo, and winning the love of the young Kay. Groups, including Kaneda’s own biker gang, are destroyed. Ties of friendship are betrayed. Tetsuo, the homicidal mutant with the power to destroy the planet, is at heart just a poor kid who dreams of snuggling up in the arms of the mother who abandoned him. The immature Kaneda shares this dream at a subconscious level, to judge by his relations with women who under pressure all prove stronger and clearer-headed: young Kay, his Pygmalion Lady Miyako, or Chiyoko, the guerilla mother-figure. All attempts to rebuild the world, such as Lady Miyako’s community, fail dismally, and the final challenge to the international community from the “Great Toyko Empire” looks like a teenage romp. To the last page, rebuilding the world remains a mere dream.

Akira is the manga that broke open the French comics market to Manga. The appeal ran deep: the disillusionment in Akira awoke deep echoes among “Generation Goldorak” in France. Born in the late 1960s, these children had come of age surrounded by doubt and disappointment. [...] Akira fed this generation’s nostalgia for Goldorak, but also corresponded to its outlook. [...] Akira is a nonstop whirlwind. Otomo masked meaninglessness and defused hopelessness with relentless action and multiple interpretations (anti-Americanism, anti-militarism, humanitarian-Buddhist religion), and by evoking an incoherent yet fascinating New Age hodge-podge, a strange new dimension in which the mysteries of DNA 11. Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo, 1982

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and humanity mutated into a higher state (never mind that many were red herrings, they filled the reader¹s mind one after another). The success of various forms of the post-apocalyptic genre brought by manga to the Western market represents not a youth that refused to fall into despair, as with Barefoot Gen, but a youth that wanted to be distracted and to reconcile disillusionment and dynamism.

AN AESTHETIC FOR GLOBAL POST-INDUSTRIAL YOUTH (2): FAREWELL TO ASTROBOY The apocalypse was just one aspect of Hiroshima’s legacy for Japanese collective memory, and through it for manga.

It was science that had produced the nuclear inferno – science mastered by the Americans better than by the Japanese, science against which all Japanese courage was powerless. From this, the Japanese learned that only by mastering science could they regain their place in the world. Science thus became the object of a veritable cult in postwar Japan.

The adults had failed in war; the future lay in the hands of their children, who, thanks to science, would build it up better than ever.Tezuka Osamu’s Astroboy is the series most typical of this mentality – as well as being the most celebrated manga of all time. The little nuclear-powered robot, created in 1952, epitomizes the “scientific youth”, whose mission is to establish a just order of the world, with Japan at the forefront. Astro rights wrongs in every corner of the world, including the United States. But the following half-century changed the cult of science just as it had changed the utopia of post-apocalyptic reconstruction. As early as the late 1960s – before than the West – Japan began to grapple with severe pollution. Tezuka himself was disillusioned when he created Black Jack, twenty years after Astroboy (published in English by Vertical). His new hero, a virtuoso surgeon, works miracles, but society makes him an outlaw. He can save lives and sometimes souls, but the radical future promised to the young readers of Astroboy has been buried under human stinginess, greed, and meanness. During the 1990s, as manga began its world conquest, science was becoming evil and dangerous. Now series portray the revenge of nature or supernatural forces against pollution and genetic modification, or the manipulation of deadly viruses. Science appears as the mother of all dangers, threatening to destroy or enslave humanity. This theme, which like post-apocalyptic disillusion was all but ignored in French comics, is today earning a large readership abroad, as pollution and global warming dominate headlines worldwide. Science gone bad, dramatized first in Japan, has become a problem for all humanity.

Yet “post-scientific” manga, as with the post-apocalyptic genre revisited by Otomo, manages to explore its themes of mad science and world-destroying pollution without sinking into despair. Thus, in Inugami, nature’s reaction to pollution triggers deadly, extreme plant growth that almost wipes out the Japanese. But when a pair of teenagers merge with the “tree of life” that has caused the disaster, new beings emerge which are able to survive within this increasingly Eden-like environment. Just so in Parasite: the cannibal species sent to earth to punish humans for polluting the planet ends up breeding with them. Here we find the same New Age ideological medley evoked by Otomo in the last volumes of Akira: humanity ascending to a new dimension; humans endowed with superior DNA; nature’s role in the dawn of a new spirituality. Never mind whether this is a mere aesthetic trope – what matters is that the sentiment dovetails with the spirit of western youth at the turn of the twenty-first century: a yearning to re-enchant a world stripped of the certainties of Reason, drained of the structure brought by modernity’s utopian Master Narratives.[...] In Japanese manga, no rationality denies that a pair of teenagers can fuse with a “tree of life”; that a peasant can meet yokai on every street corner; that the gods of a village will arise to rout the gangsters and the corrupt politicians polluting it; that an honest traveler might find himself in a village all of whose inhabitants (headless women included) make gleeful love to all comers; and that Artificial Intelligences may liberate themselves to conduct their own affairs. This joyous, mad folly cannot re-enchant a world emptied of meaning by post-industrial capitalism, but at least it can respond to latent demand. [...]”

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This article comments on many aspects which have lead to the global popularity of Manga among its readers. The aspects most important for me which I’ll address in my project are the following: • Manga mainly listens to the demands of its current readers (like the article says these demands range widely from women who desired escapism from their oppression to people who might want to escape from the current negative aspects of society).

• Modern Manga follows formulas made up by other classic mangakas who have become famous (such is Kenji Nakazawa’s case, mentioned by Jean-Marie in this article, who invented the traumatic post-apocalyptic formula in stories which has later on been used by authors like Katsuhiro Otomo).

• Manga receives less censorship and as such, addresses themes which other comic industries do not (Jean-Marie talks about this when she specifies that despite the stereotype that’s been built around Japanese culture, it’s a less repressed culture in comparison to western cultures which suffer more from the “politically correct” aspect).

Basing my investigation on these main ideas from Jean-Marie Bouissou’s article, I will study successful Manga and analyze it to break it down into a clear structure with characteristics such as visual style, characters and designs, story, narrative, publishing pace and the genre it belongs to, which will match the genre of the Manga I will make to show that if you have in mind these aspects I’ve gathered from Eurozine’s article you can make a story that’s attractive to the public which reads Manga (teenagers and adults of either gender who desire escapism, characters to identify with due to a current situation in life or perhaps just entertainment), as well as proving that there is, in fact, a formula which successful Manga in the industry use to catch the reader’s interest.

After this studying process, I will start applying the information I’ve gathered from Jean-Marie’s article and my own investigation to make my Manga.

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• I will document all the processes, whether they’re artistic or written.

• I will include brainstorming to get a first idea of the story I want to make keeping in mind the aspects I’ve gathered from Jean-Marie’s article and from the structure I will have studied from a famous Manga.

• I will design my characters and carefully write them following the themes which are attractive to the audience I decided to make the Manga for.

• I will include all the art I draw for this project (storyboarding, drawing the Manga’s pages… ) • Finally, I will publish my Manga to check if my reasoning based on Jean-Marie’s article was right or wrong.

• I will also note any difficulties I meet along the way since I find it very important for everyone to know that this kind of work isn’t easy, and even the professional authors in the industry struggle.

To end my project, I will draw conclusions out of the information I gathered initially (the list I wrote after the quoted article) and find out if I succeeded in making a Manga (after the popularity aspects from the article) which is attractive to the corresponding audience.

1.4. starting point & hypothesis I found my starting point for this research looking back on the many years I’ve read Manga and on the previously quoted article by Jean-Marie Bouissou on why Manga is now a global cultural product. From all the various works I’ve read throughout the years, I could gather one thought: all of them, most of them famous, had many characteristics in common. No matter the author, the artist, the genre it belonged to, the story or the characters they had, I could see how they all were very similar to old Manga classics in a sense. This is similar to what Jean-Marie mentions in her essay as well:

“[...] Modern manga was born in the fire of Hiroshima, Hidashi no Gen, an autobiographic Manga written by Keiji Nakazawa, which Saya Shiraishi calls its “original experience”: the story of a group of young orphaned survivors, united by friendship and the will to live, who fight in a post-apocalyptic universe with indomitable hope until a new dawn arises. This traumatic formula recurs in myriad forms in manga and anime.”

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For example, Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama, a worldwide known Manga, as written on the Weekly Boys Jump (2017) popularity poll:

“Dragon Ball has become one of the most successful manga series of all time, with over 230 million copies sold worldwide with 157 million in Japan alone, making it the third all-time best selling manga as of 2015, and the #1 manga series not currently publishing. The series is often credited for the “Golden Age of Jump” where the magazine’s circulation was at its highest.”

On the Weekly Shonen Jump #51 (1984), a series of Japanese magazines published by Shueisha which serializes Manga, the first Dragon Ball chapter made his debut with the following synopsis written by Tadashi Nagano, the magazine’s editor:

“The story follows the adventures of Son Goku, from childhood to adulthood, as he trains in martial arts and explores the world in search of the Dragon Balls, seven magical orbs which summon a wish-granting dragon when gathered. Along with his journey, Goku makes several friends and battles villains, many of whom also seek the Dragon Balls.”

From this synopsis, along with my own knowledge of reading the Manga, I can list this Manga’s characteristics: • It features a child as a protagonist who had a goal to reach and to overcome any danger that might come in the way of his objective.

• The protagonist goes on an adventure and meets a series of characters. Even more, this main character was the strongest in the cast.

• It shows a lot of combat with fast pacing, not giving the main character a lot of room for emotional development or showing their feelings since they’re but a child.

• There’s also a fact you can’t ignore which is the sexism in this Manga, mostly because it’s old and also because it’s in Japan, a doubtlessly sexist country. Even if I don’t like admitting it because I think women should be able to dress as they wish, female character designs who dress with little to no clothes or have a very curvy body are also some of the marketing strategies this Manga used to catch people’s attention.

This Manga was first published in 1984, but if you compare it to another iconic modern Manga such as Boku no Hero Academia by Horikoshi Kouhei, which was first published in 2014, they share a lot of characteristics even if this newer Manga is much more complicated and shows more emotional conflict with the main character, making him seem more human than the classic Dragon Ball’s protagonist.

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Nevertheless, they share traits in the way their stories work. This is Boku no Hero Academia’s synopsis written by Shueisha, found on the Weekly Shonen Jump (2015):

“One day, a four-year-old boy came to a sudden realization: the world is not fair. Eighty percent of the world’s population wield special abilities, known as “quirks,” which have given many the power to make their childhood dreams of becoming a superhero a reality. Unfortunately, Izuku Midoriya was one of the few born without a quirk, suffering from discrimination because of it. Yet, he refuses to give up on his dream of becoming a hero; determined to do the impossible, Izuku sets his sights on the elite hero training academy, UA High.

However, everything changes after a chance meeting with the number one hero and Izuku’s idol, All Might. Discovering that his dream is not a dead end, the powerless boy undergoes special training, working harder than ever before. Eventually, this leads to him inheriting All Might’s power, and with his newfound abilities, gets into his school of choice, beginning his grueling journey to become the successor of the best hero on the planet.”

• Boku no Hero Academia features a world where people are born with powers very similar to a superhero’s, where all children dream of studying to become one. However, our main protagonist is born without this power, but that doesn’t stop him from achieving his dream to become a hero, taking after his number one Idol. The story shows how much he goes through because of being different, but it still shares Dragon Ball’s style of story with flashy combat and eccentric characters who are surprisingly strong.

• Because of his looks, no one thinks the protagonist will turn out to be as strong as they are in both Mangas, as well as their never-ending hope of moving forward to achieving their objectives.

• As a side-note, I’d like to include that even if not as much, Boku no Hero Academia also follows the trend of offering viewers a lot of female characters with skimpy designs, even more so having in mind that they take after the trend of Superhero outfits with skin-tight outfits.

The reason they share these traits is that Dragon Ball is a classic Manga that’s gone down in history, to the point where people who don’t particularly enjoy Manga still have heard about it. It is almost compulsory that aspiring Manga authors follow this work’s steps to successfully make a Manga that can hopefully result with the same popularity.

18 Furthermore, these classics were very important for Manga history since they had been a huge craze for the very first readers and they were the very first works which lured Japanese writers and artists into creating Manga. This the case of the female artists mentioned in this fragment of the article:

“On the other side of the world, the “Year 24 Flower Group” offered to Japanese girls of the same age mangas conceived and drawn by young women for young women. These had an aesthetic of their own, an attention to issues such as rape or unwanted pregnancy, and a female perspective on love and sex. In a highly macho society, where it was hard for girls to imagine a relationship on equal terms with a boy, these artists made good use of devices such as cross-dressing heroines, on the model of the celebrated “Lady Oscar” of Riyoko Ikeda’s Rose of Versailles, or relationships between teenage boys (shonen ai), which let the female reader identify either with the more effeminate or with the more virile. When their readers started working, their publishers invented “OL manga” (office lady manga).”

Therefore, my starting point was, based on my own experience, this brief analysis on two famous Manga (Dragon Ball and Boku no Hero Academia) and Jean-Marie’s article, that all modern famous Manga had a lot in common with its classics, and that was most likely linked with the secrets behind its popularity among the readers, along with the other aspects I listed, quoting myself: “Manga mainly listens to the demands of its current readers (like the article says these demands range widely from women who desired escapism from their oppression to people who might want to escape from the current negative aspects of society).

Modern Manga follows formulas made up by other classic mangakas who have become famous (such is Kenji Nakazawa’s case, mentioned by Jean-Marie in this article, who invented the traumatic post-apocalyptic formula in stories which has later on been used by authors like Katsuhiro Otomo).

Manga receives less censorship and as such, addresses themes which other comic industries do not (Jean-Marie talks about this when she specifies that despite the stereotype that’s been built around Japanese culture, it’s a less repressed culture in comparison to western cultures which suffer more from the “politically correct” aspect).”

I knew this, but I still found it difficult to put my hypothesis into words. It happens often when you have something very clear in your mind to the point you find it absolutely obvious, and thus realizing you’ve never actually made a true reflection about it. But even so, I managed to break my hypothesis down into one sentence: “All Manga, popular or not, regardless of their genre, shares the same formula that’s been used by the famous classics of the same industry” I think this really captures the point I’m trying to prove with the Manga I’ll be creating along with this research.

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2. core

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2.1. theoretical framework

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2.1.1. what is Manga?

Before I delve further into this research, I feel like it’s necessary to define the basic concepts I’ll be using a lot in this project to avoid any confusions and to pinpoint the area of work I’ll be studying.

Quoting the official page corresponding to Manga on Wikipedia, the standard definition for it is the following:

“Manga are comics created in Japan or by creators in the Japanese language, conforming to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century. They have a long and complex pre-history in earlier Japanese art. The term manga in Japan is a word used to refer to both comics and cartooning. “Manga” as a term used outside Japan refers to comics originally published in Japan.”

Although this is a very flawed definition, it is still the commonly known one among everyone.

In fact, this is very misleading considering that: • People label any art style similar to the one used in most Manga as “Manga” itself, which would only be correct if you call “Manga style” a specific kind of story with the type of narrative and page layout that’s used in Manga. However, that’s rarely ever the case when we hear people labeling an art style as Manga.

• One of the other faults in this definition is limiting the creation of Manga to Japan.

While it is true that it was originated in Japan, it doesn’t mean that any comic outside of Japan isn’t Manga. In fact, in Jean-Marie’s article, she mentions how the western culture attempted to make comics similar to Manga seeing the rise of popularity of said culture.

Taking into account the previous comment regarding the so-called “Manga style” about how it’s actually the unique type of narrative and storytelling, any comic outside of Japan can be Manga as long as it falls under this style. It doesn’t necessarily have to be made by a Japanese artist, and it can be in any language as long as it follows this style. Furthermore, it is a contradiction to not consider a comic “Manga” just because of its language considering how most popular comics get translated into Japanese once they begin publishing it there. The only correct assumption of this standard definition we’re given is the fact that outside of Japan it is, in fact, a term that is used to refer to comics originally published in Japan, even if it’s used incorrectly.

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Therefore, having established all of this, in my project I’ve come down to a more accurate definition of what Manga is, and it comes down to this:

“Manga are comics created around the world that follow a style of narrative, characters, and story with an iconic art style that was originated in Japan in the late 19th century. This style varies throughout all of the genres that belong to Manga.”

Although it is still a generic definition, you can’t help but make it general since Manga itself is such a wide subject to study.

12. The general assumption of what Manga is VS actual Manga. The former is “How to draw Manga 6. Color”, by the Society of study of Manga Techniques. The latter is “Radiant”, by Tony Valente, a french Mangaka.

2.1.2. genres in Manga Just like in comics, TV shows, cinema, music and such, Manga also has a variety of genres that divide its works depending on their content and their target audience. The genres of Manga are separated in a very well-organized manner; they’re divided in: • Demographic genres: These would be the bigger divisions of Manga according to what audience are they mostly made for, depending both on gender and age. This is why these are named after the Japanese words of the target audience.

• Major Manga genres: These genres are the subdivisions of Manga depending on their content or ambientation. These are very similar to comic and movie genres worldwide, and as such, they also have subgenres (science-fiction, adventure, romance… )

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2.1.3. demographic genres There are big five groups of Demographic genres, all of them named after their targeted demographic. However, I would like to clarify that even if certain Mangas are specific to one target audience, it doesn’t mean it’s strictly only for that audience. There’s a big misconception about Manga for girls being read only by girls, which is just a blatant mistake.

JOSEI (女性, meaning “woman”)

These are Manga which, clearly from the meaning of its name, is aimed at women who age between late adolescence and adulthood. In fact, the word josei in Japanese means either “woman”, “womanhood”, “feminine” or “female”. This proves further that these genres are demographics since their names have no manga-related connotations whatsoever.

Josei tends to portray realistic romance, showing more sexually explicit content as well as mature narrative, even though it’s not always true. Some recurring themes are infidelity or rape, which tend to be taboo in Japanese culture, going as far as having rape sexualized.

This is exactly because it’s targeted to mature female audiences, as well as being written by women most of the time; it’s something they can emphasize with, and in a way, help them voice their mind in a sexist country.

One thing to keep in mind is that just because it’s aimed towards women doesn’t mean the characters will only be girls. In fact, some popular series of this genre such as Karneval by Mikanagi Touya feature either a male protagonist or almost all men cast. This is because male characters in this genre often are portrayed as very understanding and compassionate, sometimes even engaging in homosexual or homoromantic relationships, which is something not yet absolutely socially valid in a country such as Japan. In comparison to other genres, Josei is very mature and accepting with LGBT+ relationships and is shown to be very against toxic masculinity.

Works pertaining to this genre mostly feature strong women characters with conviction, as well as non-sexualized lesbian relationships. It’s also characteristic of this genre to portray the strong bonds of friendship between people regardless of their gender, but mostly displaying female friendships.

They mostly pay more attention to the characters, their feelings and their relationships as well as their situation in life, often showing a crisis of being stuck in life. Two perfect examples for this demographic genre are Paradise Kiss (1999-2003) and Nana (2000-2009, still publishing), both by Ai Yazawa.

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Both these Mangas and the author herself are iconic figures in the Josei history, and as such, works in this genre have been heavily influenced by Ai Yazawa, who also is known for her strong sense of fashion design in all of her work. Paradise Kiss, her defining Manga, features a woman studying hard for college to make her parents happy. She finds herself stuck in life under the pressure of making her family proud. She is simple, but she doesn’t have low self-esteem whatsoever. This is already something that’s popular in female leads in Josei Manga, a protagonist who is sure of herself and is in no means useless or not intelligent. The story also presents a group of fashionistas who decide to take her under their wing and give her a glamorous full-body and mind makeover. This group of stylish fashionistas is not populated only by women: in fact, half of them are men. They’re all flamboyant and show no shame in admiring fashion and make-up. This genre also likes to emphasize how a man doesn’t have to be homosexual to show interest in themes like these or to be nice, understanding, sensitive and kind.

This work, however, features a younger protagonist. Nevertheless, the latter work, Nana, features two female leads who are already adults and living their lives. This is why this Manga feels more josei than the former, even more so when Nana was the Manga that made popular portraying complicated yet realistic and mature romantic and sexual relationships as well as their more negative side, such as infidelity and lying. It also has a wide cast of characters, most of them being men who also show the characteristics of this gender’s personality in this genre. Nana is more dramatic than Paradise Kiss and shows how the two female protagonists struggle in their adult life but somehow get through with their strong friendship, going as far as romanticism. You could say that Nana is the core of the josei genre, fully showing its real meaning.

13. Nana, Ai Yazawa, 2000, still publishing.

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SEINEN (青年, meaning “youth”)

Despite the meaning of this word, this genre is marketed toward the young adult male demographic; in fact, this term (Seinen Manga) is often used to describe the target audience of Japanese adult comic magazines like Weekly Manga Times, which mostly consists of men between their 20s and 50s. One of the other reasons behind this target audience is the difficulty in reading the Japanese characters used when writing this kind of Manga. This demographic genre is the equivalent to the one previously explained, Josei, which is made for adult women.

Just like in Josei, the main difference between these comics and the ones made for a more juvenile audience is the complex in the stories and themes or scenes of an adult tone, such as violence and sex. Even so, sexual content isn’t always present in these stories. What’s more remarkable is the mention of it, since Seinen itself isn’t an erotic genre. These Mangas tend to have a more cynical and pragmatic approach to the conflict, dealing with more shades of gray in their plot and theme rather than an extreme black and white of good against evil.

This subgenre also features a wide variety of art styles, often drifting closer to realism to provide a feeling of proximity with real life: the worlds shown in these stories work very similarly to the way ours does, usually providing the mentioned cynicism and a skeptical view on our society.

Like with Josei, even if Seinen is marketed to an older male demographic it doesn’t strictly have that audience only. It usually ends up appealing to a younger, male audience as well as an older and younger female one. Surprisingly enough, Manga that a high-school scenario often fit within the Seinen demographic. One could argue this is because of a sense of nostalgia.

A fitting example of this genre would be the classic mentioned by Jean-Marie in her article; Akira (1988), by Katsuhiro Otomo: “`[...] The heroes wander in chaos, certainties evaporate, the differences between Good and Evil are murky, and the conclusion offers no hope of a better world.

The archetype of this metamorphosis is Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. Kaneda, a pale shadow of the positive heroes of earlier manga, is an escapee from a reformatory wandering in the ruins of Neo-Tokyo. In the face of the apocalypse, he obstinately pursues petty personal aims: avenging the deaths of his companions killed by his formerbest-friend-turned-mutant Tetsuo, and winning the love of the young Kay. Groups, including Kaneda’s own biker gang, are destroyed. Ties of friendship are betrayed. Tetsuo, the homicidal mutant with the power to destroy the planet, is at heart just a poor kid who dreams of snuggling up in the arms of the mother who abandoned him.

The immature Kaneda shares this dream at a subconscious level, to judge by his relations with women who under pressure all prove stronger and clearer-headed: young Kay, his Pygmalion Lady Miyako, or Chiyoko, the guerilla mother-figure. All attempts to rebuild the world, such as Lady Miyako’s community, fail dismally, and the final challenge to the international community from the “Great Toyko Empire” looks like a teenage romp.

14.

Monster, Naoki Urasawa, published between 1994-2001.

To the last page, rebuilding the world remains a mere dream.

Akira is the manga that broke open the French comics market to Manga. “

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This Manga features all the characteristics I’ve mentioned: it has mature themes and a very cynical and pragmatic point of view. Not just that, but a remarkable aspect would be what I explained about how these stories don’t deal with black and white, good against evil; they work with shades of grey, where for example in Akira you might sympathize with Tetsuo, the homicidal mutant who deep down just longs for the mother who abandoned him. This sympathy is even stronger when Kaneda, the apparently “good guy” in the story shares Tetsuo’s longing for a mother figure. There is no clear definition of good and evil when everyone has their own motivations and points of view: that’s Seinen’s main core, the humanity in all characters including the apparent antagonist ones.

Another strong point would be the fact that Akira while showing a Sci-fi world, isn’t that distant to the current society’s situation. You can relate a lot of its ideas to what might be happening at the moment, whether it be people trying to rebuild the world on their own with petty means (politicians, for example) or innocent people getting slaughtered meaninglessly.

This ambiguity of good actions and bad actions, of who’s good and who’s evil, tied with the doubt regarding what makes someone fit in one of those two labels is what lies at Seinen’s heart.

15. On the left, Ghost in the Shell (Masamune Shirow, 1989) and on the right, Akira (1988, Katsuhiro Otomo).

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SHŌJO (少女, meaning “young girl”)

This genre, like the name itself means, is the category of Manga which is marketed especially for young girls, usually teenagers or preadolescence. Just like with Josei, however, the audience isn’t strictly this one and ends up appealing to guys too. Along with its adult counterpart, this genre is what began spreading Manga’s male audience to the female one, both young and adult. Just like Josei was a means of escapism and identification for adult women, Shōjo is an inspiration for young girls; the strong heroines and the romance show the readers a life they can aspire to have or would want to live through. The Japanese magazines made for this audience (Shōjo magazines) appeared for the first time in 1903 when Shōjo Kai ( 少女界, meaning Girls’ World) began publishing their works, which inspired other magazines and authors to do the same. In fact, the popular wide-eyed drawing style is associated with Shōjo Manga illustrations during the early 20th century which appeared in magazines like the previously mentioned one (Shōjo Kai).

These Manga cover many subjects. It has a wide variety of narrative styles, from historical drama to science fiction. Despite what the setting might be, they always focus on romantic relationships and emotions, heavily emphasizing on the character’s feelings.

Shōjo Manga, as I’ve said, features a wide variety of narrative: it is often mixed in subgenres like Fantasy, High-school life… The one that stands out the most, however, is the Maho Shōjo (Magical Girl).

In this subgenre, the main theme is girls who have some sort of magical object or a power given to them as a divine gift, usually by some sort of talking mascot who also has these powers. The protagonists in these Manga have a duty to fulfill (protect a magical object, save the world, fight evil creatures from another world or universe… ) all the same while dealing with daily life situations like school or young romance. They also have the obligation to keep their second life a secret from everyone. A perfect example for this and for the Shōjo genre overall would be Sailor Moon, by Naoko Takeuchi, published from 1991 to 1997.

This Manga shows the everyday life of a middle school girl, Usagi Tsukino, who is given the power by a magical talking cat to become the titular Sailor Soldier. She’s joined by other Sailor Soldiers to fight off evil villains who attack the Earth. The story also shows Usagi’s maturation, starting as an emotional middle school student and ending as a responsible young adult who carries the world’s weight on her shoulders along with her partners. She is also helped by the mysterious Tuxedo Mask, who she eventually is romantically involved with.

Usagi and these other characters who also were given a magical power have to keep their secret lives a secret. The Manga also shows a lot of same-gender relationships, as well as a variety of characters who represent different gender identities, going outside of the binary genders box.

Just from this brief summary, we can see that it matches with the standard Shōjo Manga characteristics I listed. It’s a story with complex characters who experience a lot of emotional conflicts, but it’s always romanticized and idealized to appeal to the readers, who are looking for a life they would want to be living.

29 Sugawa Akiko writes about the relationship between Sailor Moon’s popularity and the era of feminism it was made on in her article “Children of Sailor Moon: The Evolution of Magical Girls in Japanese Anime” (February 26th, 2015) for the Japanese culture website Nippon: “In the 1990s, Sailor Moon (1992–97) took the world by storm and spawned a global craze for an entirely new breed of mahō shōjo: the magical girl as henshin (transforming) warrior. The Sailor Moon type is a seemingly ordinary schoolgirl who changes into an adorable costume, equipped with really cute accessories, and releases her magic energy with the help of a scepter (or similar weapon) to do battle against the forces of evil. [...]

The heroine, Tsukino Usagi, starts out as an ordinary middle-school student and then acquires the power to transform herself; later, however, we learn that she is actually the incarnation of a princess from an ancient kingdom on the moon. She assembles a team of five mahō shōjo (multiple heroines), who undergo a dress-up metamorphosis before engaging in supernatural battles. The series also introduces mothering as a recurring theme.

Sailor Moon is an iconic product of the 1990s, the era of “girl power” in the West, when girl bands were singing songs of feminine toughness and self-reliance. The magical girl warriors of Sailor Moon were Japan’s symbols of girl power, joining together to battle evil on their own, without the benefit of male leadership. (Although the cast of characters includes a male hero, Tuxedo Mask, his supporting role recedes as times goes on.)

A key attribute of the Sailor soldiers is the nature of their transformation. In their sailor collars and miniskirts, with their long hair, manicured nails, and smart accessories, they look singularly ill-equipped to do battle. When male superheroes like Kamen (Masked) Rider and the Super Sentai teams morphed, the changes were clearly designed to make the heroes stronger. But the transformation of the Sailor girls functioned primarily to exaggerate their feminine good looks and sexuality. In a major paradigm shift, Sailor Moon represented power using standard attributes of youthful feminine beauty and sexuality, negating the traditional dichotomy between cuteness and strength.”

Akiko relates Sailor Moon’s popularity to the girl power mentality present in that time. We can see how this could appeal to female comic readers, who like in Jean-Marie’s article are drawn to Manga which features strong female characters who stand up for themselves while still having a soft spot for romance. This is an ideal mentality for young girls who are growing up reading Shōjo Manga.

16. Sailor Moon, by Naoko Takeuchi, published from 1991 to 1997.

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SHŌNEN (少年漫画, meaning “boy”) The last genre I’ll be talking about is Shonen Manga. It’s aimed at a teen male target-demographic readership: just like the meaning of the name, “boy” or “youth”, the readers age between pre-adolescent and adolescence, as well as late teenage years (18 or so). The characters in the word quite literally mean “boys’ comic” (少年 meaning “boy” or “youth” and 漫画 meaning “comic”). This genre would be the male equivalent to Shōjo Manga, but just like with Seinen Manga, it doesn’t mean the readers are only guys.

Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball, also mentioned in Jean-Marie’s article, is the Manga responsible for how most Shonen Manga is made now; what stories they have, what narrative they use, what characters they have… Quoting Viz Media’s Manga: The Complete Guide, we can see how current Mangakas have been inspired by this Manga: “Akira Toriyama’s Dragon Ball (1984–1995) is credited with setting the trend of popular shōnen manga from the 1980s onward, with manga critic Jason Thompson in 2011 calling it “by far the most influential shōnen manga of the last 30 years.” Many currently successful shōnen authors such as Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, Tite Kubo, Hiro Mashima and Kentaro Yabuki cite him and Dragon Ball as an influence on their own now popular works.”

Let’s quote the characteristics I listed myself for Dragon Ball: • It features a child as a protagonist who had a goal to reach and to overcome any danger that might come in the way of his objective.

• The protagonist goes on an adventure and meets a series of characters. Even more, this main character was the strongest in the cast.

• It shows a lot of combat with fast pacing, not giving the main character a lot of room for emotional development or showing their feelings since they’re but a child.

• There’s also a fact you can’t ignore which is the sexism in this Manga, mostly because it’s old and also because it’s in Japan, a doubtlessly sexist country. Even if I don’t like admitting it because I think women should be able to dress as they wish, female character designs who dress with little to no clothes or have a very curvy body are also some of the marketing strategies this Manga used to catch people’s attention.

Having in mind what I explained about Dragon Ball being an influential Shonen Manga, these are the same characteristics that most works belonging to this genre show.

They’re usually characterized by high-action and typically show a sense of humor, mostly featuring male protagonists that can appeal to its target audience. Just like in Shōjo Manga where there’s a big emphasis on female groups or their friendship and feelings, Shonen Manga typically portrays friendships or camaraderie between boys, as well as a sense of teamwork (a lot of Shonen features the main group of characters who fight together with good chemistry).

The protagonists usually show some sort of growth related to their strength or power along the stories, as well as maturing all the while having their abilities tested. They tend to fight for a greater good or a personal objective.

31 Just like with Dragon Ball, a lot of Shonen Manga tend to use sexual humor, often leaning towards the sexist side. One of Dragon Ball’s main characters, Bulma, is often teased by an old man who harasses her and touches her without her consent.

This is far from funny, but the story relies on this humor. Even if not all, some current Shonen Manga also use these kinds of jokes.

Of course, none of these characteristics are a requirement for Manga of this genre. There are exceptions which may feature a female lead character who’s strong and in no way objectified. Case in point, Atsushi Okubo’s Soul Eater (2003).

Soul Eater is a Shonen Manga which features a strong female lead, Maka Albarn, accompanied by her partner Soul, who turns into her weapon. She is the dominant one of the pair.

She’s an intelligent, strong-willed and skilled analytical fighter. Just like other Shonen with male protagonists, this Manga also shows high-paced action and the main group, lead by Maka.

Although the story might use humor which leans towards the sexual side, if it ever is slightly sexist the female characters are quick to react to it and not keep quiet: they aren’t silenced.

Nevertheless, it is true that not a lot of Shonen Manga have a single female protagonist.

17. Akira Toriyama, Dragon ball, 1984; 18. Soul Eater, Atsushi Okubo, 2003.

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2.2. practical framework

2.2.1. creating my Manga where do I begin?

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the initial concept What comes to mind first when creating a Manga or any type of comic would be the story, the characters, the world they’re in, the genre… In my case, for this project, the ideas for my story began two years ago when I assisted classes during the summer for one month at Escola Joso, an Art school which specializes in comic. The main exercise for this course was to create a 4-page comic, fully drawn and inked traditionally, as well as showing the process of creating characters and a script for this short story.

When I was creating characters I drew what first came to mind: my biggest interest had always been to make a story with a strong, intelligent female lead who experiences emotional struggle and difficulty in showing affection, both themes which are very close to me. I also chose an aesthetic which I was attracted to: a modern Steampunk look. Keeping in mind the thought of having a sidekick who could help her cope through her emotional struggle, I decided that my character would be a female engineer whose sidekick would be a robot child she had made herself.

At the point I didn’t think of names for the characters since they weren’t necessary for the exercise, so I referred to them as “G” (the female protagonist) and “R” (the robot boy). The script was simple enough and it followed the typical pattern of introduction, conflict, and resolution. Here’s what I wrote for that exercise, along with the finished pages: “G is an engineer who has built R, the robot child, to help her at the workshop, as well as to keep her company since she feels lonely in life but isn’t interested in love whatsoever. She wants a pure company. R doesn’t know of the latter reason and G won’t admit it either.

R is interested in doing activities families do, so he asks G about going on a vacation, just the two of them. G blatantly refuses and says she’s busy with the workshop, and that they aren’t a family. R is hurt and gets mad at her, leaving the workshop in a rush.

R is later found by G at the street, surprisingly carrying some suitcases and wearing a more casual attire. She apologizes and tells him how important he actually is to her and promises she’ll be more comprehensive next time.

The two end up going on vacation with G’s car.

The comic ends with R asking G why she built him. She admits to having made him because she needed help at the workshop, but adds that he’s like a son to her now.”

Back then, I was very proud of these results and, as such, I got very interested in making comics. Two years later, I still love these pages even if my art has improved with time. Because of how attached I was with these characters and this short comic I decided to use them for this project giving them some tweaks in their stories and designs to make them work with my hypothesis of appealing to a certain audience depending on the genre I decided to go for with the new comic I would make for them in this project. To do this, I first had to pin down the genre I wanted the story to belong to.

36 choosing my Manga’s genre: Josei To get an idea of the genre I wanted to write, I decided to list the characteristics of the characters I had: • A female adult protagonist who is strong and intelligent, taking up the work of an engineer.

• She faces an emotional struggle in her life and finds herself lonely and stuck.

• She finds the company she needs in a robot child she builds, who he has a mother and son relationship with.

• The child helps her cope through her crisis and emotions.

I found that these were very similar to the Josei genre characteristics I wrote, which were: “Works pertaining to this genre mostly feature strong women characters with conviction.

It’s also characteristic of this genre to portray the strong bonds of friendship between people regardless of their gender.

They mostly pay more attention to the characters, their feelings and their relationships as well as their situation in life, often showing a crisis of being stuck in life.”

Seeing as this is a genre I love in Manga, I thought I’d keep the characters since they fit with these characteristics and the kind of stories these Mangas feature. However, I made some changes to them so they’d be more attractive to the audience this kind of Manga is aimed at like I specified when talking about Josei, a mature readership consisting of mostly women. I decided to age up the protagonist, as well as giving her and the sidekick more emotional depth like the characters shown in Josei Manga. I also decided to draw them again, giving the designs some minor variations.

I also added a new character which I’ll list in the following pages to fit with this genre’s themes.

The final characters were the following, which I named during the process:

37 NORA STANTON Named after Nora Stanton Blatch Barney, a civil engineer, architect and suffragist among the first women to graduate with an engineering degree in the United States.

• Engineer, inventor, and pilot who works at a workshop.

• Is in her late 20s.

• She always looks very tired and sleep-deprived, showing strong eye bags under her eyes.

• Doesn’t really care for her looks (messy hair, eye bags, wrinkled clothes, bad posture…).

• Very hard-working, often forgetting to take care of herself while she’s drowning in work.

• Built Earheart the robot thanks to Amelia’s blueprints she left behind.

• Always has a very stoic face and has a hard time expressing her feelings.

• She’s very closed, not much of an extrovert.

• Afraid of warming up to people, may end up acting cold or rude. Has trust issues.

• Currently going through a crisis and depression.

• While she’s not currently interested in relationships, she’s only ever loved a woman, Amelia.

• Even though she hides it from Earheart, she used to work with Amelia before at the workshop and the two of them were in a relationship.

38 AMELIA EARHEART Named after Amelia Mary Earhart, an American aviation pioneer and the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean.

• Deceased.

• Same age as Nora, they studied together.

• Aside from being an inventor, she was a pilot who tested Nora’s machines.

• She loved designing and making complicated blueprints, claiming she wanted to surprise Nora one day with one of her projects.

• She’s the one who designed Earheart, which later on Nora built herself.

• Very social in comparison to Nora. She was kind, strong and very straight-forward.

• Nora used to say she was a bit of an idiot, referencing to how little she thought about what she said (hot-blooded).

• Had a very bad heart condition, thus why she wanted to live life to the fullest.

• Loved Nora very dearly and was in a relationship with her.

39 EARHEART Named after Amelia’s last name, as if they were her child.

• No gender because they’re a robot child who has no interest in identity. Uses gender-neutral pronouns.

• Built by Nora, but designed by Amelia even though they’re clueless of this.

• Very bright and cheerful, often trying to lift Nora’s spirits.

• Acts like a child and is very emotional even though they’re a robot.

• As childish as they may act, they’re very aware of Nora’s depression and try their best to help her through it.

• Doesn’t know who Amelia is.

• Wants to do family activities with Nora as other children do.

• Often feels the weight of having to support Nora’s emotional struggle even though she hasn’t asked this of them.

• Aside from working as Nora’s assistant inside the workshop, Earheart also advertises the workshop and hands out leaflets to passersby.

• They have combat-ready functions but only uses them to take care of Nora.

40 I added the new character, Amelia, to fit with the Josei thematic of lesbian relationships and really close bonds between women. It’s also something I like to include in my stories, too.

Nora’s depression from her loss and her situation in life is very characteristic in Josei, as well: I wanted my characters to show emotional struggle and, most importantly, make them feel real, which Josei Manga captures really well. I also wrote a few details on Amelia and Nora’s past to give their relationship a bit more of depth to help me come up with the first chapter I would publish of the Manga: • Amelia was inspired by Nora when they met in their late teen years when they were both studying and sharing a room together.

• Amelia didn’t know what to study and had no interest in doing so, she just wanted to have fun and live life to the fullest before her heart condition killed her. Nora had never been aware of this illness, though.

• However, she was inspired by how hardworking Nora was and this made her want to study, sparking a feeling inside of her when Nora said to her:

“There’s so much I haven’t created or learned yet. Even if I’m not important for anyone, I want to be relevant. I want somebody to find my blueprints, notes, and inventions and know I was living at one point. Living doing what I loved doing”.

• Amelia fell in love with her one night Nora explained her all of her blueprints passionately: fell in love with every word and every gesture, with her essence.

• When they graduated, Amelia told her to open a workshop together where she’ll be her pilot and assistant.

• Nora falls in love with her much, much later, when they’re 25 and Amelia confesses to her with these words:

“Moments like these let me know I want to spend my life doing this with you. I want to touch the sky and reach limits no one has reached- I want to feel like I could do anything, like I could mean everything to someone- Someone... like you. I want to get a grasp of your heart. Life is too short and I wouldn’t dream of a minute away from you, Nora.”

• Amelia died of a heart attack after they successfully tested the first airship they made together when they were both 26. This leaves Nora grieving as she falls into depression, feeling guilty of Amelia’s passing. She finds Earheart’s blueprints and builds the robot. The Manga starts three years after these events.

Having their mature relationship sorted out which helped me have a bit of context for the story I decided to plan the first chapter: • I wanted it to have a big impact on the readers to keep them interested in the Manga, focusing on Nora’s guilt around her past and how she thinks she deserves to feel bad, being emotionally stuck in life.

• It’s also important for me to show that despite her situation, Earheart still tries to lift her spirits with little details when they take care of her.

• My experience of going through depression was having a lot of nightmares. Out of everything else this mental illness did to me, they were what I thought was the most interesting to portray in a first chapter since illustrating nightmares is very impacting. I thought it was also one of the best ways to show this struggle of being stuck with something that gets in the way of your everyday life.

41 Therefore, I decided that this chapter would show Nora’s nightmares and introspective thoughts, as well as Earheart as someone who supports her. In Josei Manga it really stands out how some of the secondary characters act as an emotional support for the protagonist’s emotional situations.

2.2.2. script and storyboarding the webcomic format Having in mind what I wanted to show in the first chapter, the next step of making the Manga was coming up with a script I would later adapt into a storyboard for the pages.

I wrote my script keeping in mind where I wanted the impact to be. The first pages had to be very intense with the nightmare sequence, and then, later on, they’d be much calmer once Nora wakes up from her nightmare. Everything I wrote for the script kept my objective of having the readers interested in the story: for this genre, this meant strong emotional impact and the female protagonist showing thoughts and feelings which the readers might relate to. You can find the script in the final section of this project, the Artbook.

After having it written out, it was only a matter of adapting this script to drawings (the storyboard for the pages). For this, I had to keep in mind in mind the following: • The panels used in Josei Manga are often very close to the character and tend to focus more on faces rather than the environment or the full body unless it’s necessary.

• The length couldn’t be either too long or too short, it had to be a balanced in-between that felt right to the readers. Therefore, the panels could only show important things.

Anything unnecessary that didn’t the emotions I had in mind had to be excluded for the sake of the length.

• The format of where I would, later on, publish the Manga, which I decided would be Tapas, a webcomic website where people publish their comics freely and if their work ends up attaining a certain popularity (reaching a concrete subscriber count) the authors could be paid by the readers.

42 vertical format Tapas is a website that lets artists freely publish webcomics and novels. This website is mostly intended for mobile usage, which is a widely used platform that gives you the opportunity of showcasing your work to a very large audience (people interested in comics who can read works by artists whenever they want to wherever thanks to the mobile app).

Tapas has become a popular website among comic artists who are just starting because of the unlocking feature users can use to read more chapters of an author’s comic.

While the first chapter is always free to read, you have to pay to unlock more episodes: these profits go to the artist, of course.

All of these facts made me think it was an easy way to publish my work with the opportunity of reaching a larger audience than the one intended (while it’s true the genre is meant for older women, anyone with a phone who has this app could stumble upon my comic and read it and, perhaps, be interested in it). However, the format of the comics in these websites is different. It’s made for mobile scrolling, meaning the pages are displayed vertically as such.

Because of this vertical format, I had to rethink a lot of aspects of the narrative in the pages and the flow (the panel arrangements that keep the work legible and clear, the lines that the reader’s eyes follow...).

Keeping all these aspects I previously listed, I drew (using a graphic tablet) the drafts for the pages, which would be shown vertically, one after the other.

19. Torte and Lacey, by Whispwill.

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2.2.3. inking & coloring in Clip Studio Paint the software

For this process I used a drawing software which I’m familiar with mostly made for Manga, Clip Studio Paint. I’ve used this program for my illustrations and comics for almost two years now, so I’m already experienced with it and I didn’t have a hard time using it during this project.

This is the software’s interface. It’s very similar to Photoshop: it has the same tools and functions, but what makes the difference is that it’s made specially for Manga (meaning it has tools such as speech bubbles, page margins and free assets you can download from other users, such as special brushes and 3d Models to guide you).

44 inking process For this, I used two brushes: one for the nightmare sequence which was supposed to be rough-looking and sketchy, and another cleaner brush for the rest of the chapter.

During the inking process, using the layer system I lowered the opacity on the original sketch and did the lineart on a layer above it, also defining the panel outlines. I wanted the art style to look more like a mature Manga so it would fit within the Josei genre aesthetic, trying to attract a more mature audience who could be drawn to the Manga by the art.

• For the nightmare sequence, I also used crosshatching techniques with a spray brush and made the wind-like black shadows with a textured brush to achieve the chaotic, hazy look I wanted.

• During this inking process, I also added in the dialogues with a font that comes with the software, called ANIME ACE 2.0 BB. I should also mention that I made some changes in the panel arrangement that I made in the first drafts.

• I removed two panels which I found unnecessary for the narrative (Nora putting down her mug of tea and Earheart appearing with a plate of cookies and tea, which didn’t make sense since they’re never seen with this plate when they first appear).

• I changed the flashback panel in the nightmare sequence. In the first draft, it showed Amelia’s death, which I replaced with a memory of the two of them holding hands.

The final results of the inked pages are in the Artbook.

45 coloring process For this part, I decided to work with the descriptions I wrote in the script:

“I want the nightmare to be something that asphyxiates her to show the damage this guilt and depression has on her → she feels like she’s drowning. The nightmare will be completely dark, imitating an ocean’s depths. Nevertheless, the more damaging the memories the nightmare gives her are, the warmer the tone of the colors used is.

Some memories of Amelia and their relationship are distorted in the nightmare, giving the effect of a negative photography.” “(AWAKE) The drawings have a clean, softer lineart and the pages are fully colored with mostly warm colors and light sources that make it look brighter. I want it to look like a welcoming place who a reader who might find themselves in a similar emotional situation would feel good in, with someone who supports them” Because of this, I decided to color the last two pages first which include more color and a more detailed over-all finish. Taking some of the colors from the characters’ designs, I made this palette which was a balance between warm, bright colors and darker ones.

This doesn’t mean I strictly stayed in line with this palette.

It was more of a reference of what I wanted the tones to be like.

• I first filled in the base colors.

• I shaded them with a warmer and darker tone.

• Lastly, I gently airbrushed some yellow as a gradient over the panels to give the sense of sunlight coming in through the windows, as well as a “cozy at home” sensation. I also airbrushed a bit of orange on every shadow’s edge to make everything more three dimensional.

• For the darker, sketchy nightmare sequence the process was much easier since I had already shaded it with gray when I inked it. All I did was gently brush some warmer colors on them as a gradient (like I did with the yellow in the fully colored pages), and on the flashback, use very outstanding but dark colors to stand out in the page.

48 picking the title “Coping Mechanism” Once the chapter was done, I had one last matter to solve: the title. I hadn’t thought about it until then since I always tend to name my work after it’s done.

For this, I thought about my ideas of Nora finding herself drowning in her guilt and her mixed feelings on how she deserves such a thing.

It also came to mind how this guilt and pain were her ways of coping with Amelia’s loss.

Instead of facing it head-on and giving herself a break, she decides to blame her way to cope with Amelia’s passing. I started relating this with how she also uses engineering and overworking as a way to avoid her emotional problems, too, as a self-defense mechanism.

Having all of this in mind, I tried to come up with a title that was some kind of metaphor for all of these ways Nora has of dealing with loss and her repressed feelings. And so, I came up with the title “Coping Mechanism”.

2.2.4. online publication Last but not least, now that the pages were finished and met the requirements the website asked for (each page had to be up to 940 x 4000px with a minimum file size of 2MB) it was time to create this series on Tapas.

When you create the series, the website asks you for: • A title (in my case, Coping Mechanism).

• A custom URL (for example, https://tapas.io/series/ Coping-Mechanism).

• A thumbnail, which is the same thing as a cover.

• A brief synopsis.

• A banner for the series.

• The genre. On the website, they don’t use the demographic classification (Josei, Seinen, Shojo, Shonen…) but rather a genre which depends on the content of the story. Out of these, my Manga would belong in Drama.

49 setting up the website layout I decided to first address the matter of the synopsis. It had to be brief and interesting enough to make my target audience interested without giving away too much information. Therefore, the synopsis had to showcase what was most characteristic in my Manga: the protagonist’s emotional situation and her pain, as well as her assistant Earheart who helped her get through her depression. It’s also relevant that Nora was in a relationship in the past with Amelia, who is now dead, but that wasn’t something I wanted to spoil in the synopsis. The final synopsis resulted in the following:

“Nora Stanton is an ill-tempered engineer who sees no hope in living. Even so, something seems to keep her living with a heavy weight on her shoulders. Nevertheless, her bright and childlike assistant Earheart is determined to pull her away from the ghosts of the past that haunt her- even if it risks someone finding out about their secret.”

After this, there were more artistic matters such as the thumbnail and the banner. The covers on this website don’t have flashy logos like regular comic covers: they’re simple and fit with the white background of the website.

Given that they’re small thumbnails that the readers can see when they’re browsing through the website’s comics, they’re often illustrations with close shots of the characters.

Therefore, I planned my Manga’s thumbnail in the same way. A close-up of the main characters, Nora and Earheart, that portrays their personality and is visually attractive enough for the readers to be interested in. I also decided that it was necessary to show Nora’s bond with the past that ties her down. The conclusive thumbnail was the following.

I felt like this thumbnail was the correct one for showing what I mentioned, keeping in mind that it could be attractive to a reader who is looking for Manga or comics of the same genre.

• I made a different version prior to the final one which I ended up not using since I felt it didn’t represent my Manga well enough, and it wasn’t exactly what my target audience would be looking for since it doesn’t really explain anything about the characters. Nevertheless, it can be found in practical framework double spread.

20. Torte and Lacey, by Whispwill.

50 setting up the website layout What remained was the banner. This is a banner that appears on top of the comic’s page and can be shared on other social media to advertise your comic. I based my banner off the Blessed Cure series banner on Tapas, made by Mario César.

• A simple banner which isn’t overloaded with unnecessary fully-detailed illustrations.

• It shows the comic’s title and the author.

• It also specifies the accessibility (you can read it for free) along with the series’ URL. From this inspiration, I made my own banner which I, later on, shared on my social media:

The banner itself isn’t too complicated. I drew Nora and Earheart doing things that represented them (Nora working as an engineer, forgetful of her self-care, and Earheart watching over her). I didn’t want the banner to give a lot of information away since I wanted the readers to have a big impact after seeing the first chapter.

After these matters were sorted out (thumbnail and banner) I scheduled this first chapter to come out on September 8th, 2018 at 4 PM. I decided to prove or disprove my objective with the website’s Milestone feature. For every series you have, there’s a first milestone you have to reach that, once you do, allows the readers to tip you with money and unlock more episodes of your series. Would I successfully reach this milestone it would mean I would’ve fulfilled my objective (“Publish my Manga following this structure and see if it can become popular. This popularity I want it to have is, of course, the one a common successful Manga would have: readers who enjoy it and find it catchy, which leads said readers to continue buying its volumes every time it publishes.”).

Part of it was fulfilled, already. Looking back on the structure I made for my Manga’s genre, I did successfully publish the first chapter of a Manga which followed this structure: 21. Blessed Cure series banner on Tapas, made by Mario César.

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“Works pertaining to this genre mostly feature strong women characters with conviction, as well as non-sexualized lesbian relationships.

It’s also characteristic of this genre to portray the strong bonds of friendship between people regardless of their gender.

They mostly pay more attention to the characters, their feelings and their relationships as well as their situation in life, often showing a crisis of being stuck in life.”

Having this structure also meant I had already fulfilled my first objective of breaking down the basics of Manga, as well as creating one: “Break down the basics of Manga and its structure to grasp what it is that makes it so appealing to the readers, whether they be young or middle-aged of any gender and nationality. This structure would have the keys to success for a Manga: making iconic characters, an unforgettable story and a narrative that keeps you reading.”

“Creating my own Manga using these keys to success in the industry, in the context of a popularity success (having a very diverse audience with varying ages and gender from different countries that enjoys Manga).” results after publishing my webcomic Tapas offers the authors graphs that record their series’ performance based on views, likes, subscribers, and comments. These results are presented by months. My graphs showed the following two months later: While it is true that over time they have dropped because I haven’t published another chapter since the episode blew up when it came out. It also helped that I shared it on social media so more people could see it.

In the first graph are shown the subscribers.

Respectively, from left to right: 2 subscribers on August when the episode was scheduled, 15 on September when it came out, 7 on October and 3 in November. This is a total of 27 subscribers. In the second graph, we can see the viewers. From left to right: 104 views on September, 40 on October, 28 on November and 18 on December. This is a total of 190 viewers.

This means I successfully reached the mentioned milestone of 25 subscribers, gaining almost 200 views pretty consistently.

The fact that my Manga was nicely welcomed and was attractive to the 190 viewers who read

51 results after publishing my webcomic it proved my point that modern Manga follows, just like mine, a structure made by classics of their genres and this helps them be appealing to the readers and eventually become popular among their audience, proving my hypothesis. Quoting myself:

“Therefore, my starting point was, based on my own experience, this brief analysis on two famous Manga (Dragon Ball and Boku no Hero Academia) and Jean-Marie’s article, that all modern famous Manga had a lot in common with its classics, and that was most likely linked with the secrets behind its popularity among the readers, along with the other aspects I listed, quoting myself: “Manga mainly listens to the demands of its current readers (like the article says these demands range widely from women who desired escapism from their oppression to people who might want to escape from the current negative aspects of society).

Modern Manga follows formulas made up by other classic mangakas who have become famous (such is Kenji Nakazawa’s case, mentioned by Jean-Marie in this article, who invented the traumatic post-apocalyptic formula in stories which has later on been used by authors like Katsuhiro Otomo). [...]I managed to break my hypothesis down into one sentence: All Manga, popular or not, regardless of their genre, shares the same formula that’s been used by the famous classics of the same industry.”

3. conclusions When I chose this project, I didn’t think it would give me a lot to think about since Manga was something I thought to know a lot about: this is true, but I had never thoroughly investigated its history and the reasons behind its international success. When I read Jean-Marie’s article which I, later on, based my research on, I realized there was so much I didn’t know before and studying this history of why it’s had a massive success among the audience who enjoys comic and the artists who now make Manga. It’s also been a self-discovery process where I analyzed why it was that Manga had reached the hearts of me and other women.

The process of studying Manga’s genres has been a nostalgic one that let me go back in time and remember the classics I’ve read that have meant so much to me during my childhood, analyzing their structures and finding out that these famous Manga which I so greatly adored

52 conclusions all came down to a basic structure that is later used by modern Manga nowadays. It’s helped me understand the choices they make from a professional point of view to fulfill the reader’s needs at all costs.

The creative aspect of this project, making my Manga, has helped me see my evolution both as an artist and a person, looking back at the first concept art and old pages for the comic.

The process of generating ideas and developing these (making my characters and stories more complex to fit with the structure of the genre) let me see my growth as a writer who now has a different concept of what makes a character and a story attractive, seeing how the themes I wanted to write about have matured too. The artistic section (designing the characters, coming up with compositions for the pages that had a good graphic narrative and giving them a detailed finishing process) made me take a step to work hard to do things I had never done before, like working with a vertical format which changed my conception of the narrative or making me mix two different techniques (a sketchy finish and a cleaner one). All of this has made me analyze my evolution as an artist, looking back at the original pages I based my new Manga on.

Returning to my hypothesis, is it true that all Manga, regardless of their genre, share the same formula that’s been used by the famous classics of the same industry? Yes, it is. During all of this project, I haven’t just discovered that modern Manga share this formula created by Manga that are considered classics in the industry (this is the case of the comparison I made between Dragon Ball, 1984, and Boku no Hero Academia, 2014), but I’ve also found that while I was creating my Manga following the formula I deciphered from a classic of its genre (Nana) so that my work could be attractive to my target audience, it was so easy to make an interesting Manga out of a famous work’s structure. I wasn’t just influenced by the formula I made while analyzing the original Manga, I was also unconsciously influenced by Nana since it’s a very important Manga in my life, being one of the first I ever read whose characters I strongly related myself to.

This led me to also make a story and characters I could identify myself with, taking after my role model work in Manga. Aside from all of this, my hypothesis was further proved by the success my work had when I published it.

Even though I was very familiar with the territory my project found itself in, which is creating comics (an artistic territory), it still was a challenge since I had never thoroughly done all the process behind creating a comic (making a script, portraying a mental illness like depression, designing my characters and writing their story all to make it appealing to my target audience following the formula I made, working with a vertical panel flow… ) which a lot of times we, the readers, don’t keep in mind when we read the finishing product and criticize it without having in mind the rigorous work put behind it only to appeal its target audience. Another difficulty was the time I had to make this project. I wish I could’ve done more concept art for the Manga, such as more detailed design sheets for the characters or illustrations for the backgrounds that would appear in the Manga, which I didn’t draw with much detail in the end due to the time I

53 conclusions had to make this project. I wish I could’ve done more concept art for the Manga, such as more detailed design sheets for the characters or illustrations for the backgrounds that would appear in the Manga, which I didn’t draw with much detail in the end due to the time I had because of my work speed. Despite all of these difficulties being negative, I think it’s still interesting to have worked through negative experiences that could often come up when doing professional work.

Despite all of this, I would like to conclude that I’m very satisfied with this project. Choosing to delve further in the professional work put behind the creation of Manga has made me consider the comic industry one which I would like to work in the future, aside from being an illustrator which is my main goal in the future. Thanks to this project I’ve experienced what it is to work from a professional point of view and knowing that there are readers who really enjoyed my Manga (which I still get comments and subscribers from the website even now) lifted my spirits and has encouraged me to make more comics in the future. This whole project has felt like a dream come true since I had wanted to create something like this since I was a child because Manga has been a very important part of my life which I’m very passionate about.

Even if I’ve achieved my goals for this project, I have new objectives now and this work isn’t over. My next goals are to continue publishing this Manga, who’s next pages I’ve already begun sketching. I would like to encourage you to read my Manga having in mind the process I’ve documented during this project and artists who may be overwhelmed by the idea of beginning a big project like a comic to just take the step and try it without being afraid. It’s a completely unique experience that’s helped me as an artist which I would love for other artists to live.

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4. bibliography websites • Manga. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manga. September 4th, 2018.

• What are Manga and Anime? 1995. Eri Izawa. MIT Community. http://www.mit.edu/~rei/ Expl.html. September 4th, 2018.

• Glossary of anime and Manga. Wikipedia. 2001. English WIkipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/Glossary_of_anime_and_manga. September 15th, 2018.

• A complete list of Anime genres with explanations. Cheeky Kid. 2018. ReelRundown. https://reelrundown.com/animation/Anime-Genre-List. September 15th, 2018.

• Dragon Ball. Top Manga. 2015. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/manga/42/Dragon_ Ball?q=dragon. September 18th, 2018.

• Boku no Hero Academia. Top Manga. 2015. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/manga/75989/Boku_no_Hero_Academia?q=boku%20no%20. September 18th, 2018.

• Paradise Kiss. Ai Yazawa. 2015. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/manga/29/Paradise_ Kiss?q=paradise%20kiss. September 18th, 2018.

• Nana. Ai Yazawa. 2015. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/manga/28/Nana?q=nana.

September 18th, 2018.

• Ai Yazawa. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ai_Yazawa.

September 18th, 2018.

• Akira. Katsuhiro Otomo. 2015. MyAnimeList. https://myanimelist.net/manga/664/Akira.

September 18th, 2018.

• Shonen Manga. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Dnen_manga. October 24th, 2018.

• Shojo Manga. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sh%C5%8Djo_manga. October 24th, 2018.

• Seinen. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinen. October 24th, 2018.

• Seinen Manga. Wikipedia. 2001. English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seinen_ manga. October 25th, 2018.

55 websites • What is Seinen? [Definition, Meaning]. CJL. 2015. Honey’s Anime. https://honeysanime.com/ what-is-seinen-definition-meaning. November 5th, 2018.

• Children of Sailor Moon: The Evolution of Magical Girls in Japanese Anime. Sugawa Akiko. 2015.

Nippon. https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a03904/. November 6th, 2018.

• referenced anime, manga, comics and cartoons • • Aoyama, Gosho. Detective Conan. Weekly Shonen Sunday. Shogakukan, 1994.

• Atoms, Maxwell. The grim adventures of Billy & Mandy. Cartoon Network, 2000.

• Bard, Gabriel; Rougement, Pierre; Courtois, Gaston. Coeurs Vaillants. Paris, 1929.

• Dupuis. Spirou. Spirou magazine, #1. 1938.

• Horikoshi, Kohei. Boku no Hero Academia. Shonen Jump, 2014.

• Ikeda, Riyoko. The Rose of Versailles. Shueisha, 1972.

• Marvel. Origins of Marvel Comics. 2018.

• Morey Mann, King. Heroes in Crisis. DC, 2018.

• Sawai, Yoshio. Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo. Shueisha. Shonen Jump, 2001.

• Shinkai, Makoto. Kimi no Na Wa. CoMix Wave Films. Toho, 2016.

• Shirow, Masamune. Ghost in the Shell. Kodansha. Young Magazine, 1989.

• Suganuma, Eiji. Karneval. Ichijinsha. Monthly Comic Zero Sum, 2013.

• Takeuchi, Naoko. Sailor Moon. Kodansha. Nakayoshi, 1992.

• Tartakovsky, Genndy. Samurai Jack. Cartoon Network, 2001.

• Tezuka, Osamu. Astroboy. Kobunsha. Shonen Kobunsha, 1952.

• Toriyama, Akira. Dragon Ball. Shueisha. Shonen Jump, 1984.

• Okubo, Atsushi. Soul Eater. Square Enix. Shonen Gangan, 2003.

• Otomo, Katsuhiro. Akira. Kodansha. Young Magazine, 1982.

• Urasawa, Naoki. Monster. Shogakukan. Big Comic Original, 1994.

• Valente, Tony. Radiant. Ankama, 2015.

• Whispwill. Torte and Lacey. Tapas, 2018.

• Yazawa, Ai. Nana. Shueisha. Cookie, 2000.

• Yazawa, Ai. Paradise Kiss. Shodensha. Zipper, 1999.

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5. special thanks This project wouldn’t have been possible without the people around me who have encouraged me to keep working towards my goals.

I’d like to first thank my tutor for this research project, Paco Rico. Aside from tutoring my for this project and helping me with any doubts I had, he’s always been an amazing supportive Art teacher who’s always been up for helping me with this project. I would like to thank him for the many answered emails and reunions where he’s guided me and led me to give my project interesting perspectives, as well as encouraging me to keep working on more comics in the future.

Secondly, I also want to thank Carlos Moreno, my comic teacher during my summer classes at Escola Joso, whose professional advice, patience and guidance have been an inspiration for my work.

Last but not least, I want to thank my friends and family who have always been supportive of my work and have given me different opinions and ideas that have helped me make this project possible. Thank you all so much for being there for me.

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6. annex: art book

script Every chapter’s title will be a personal reflection the character narrating makes by the end of the chapter. In this case, Nora’s POV (point of view) brings the title “In short, I hate myself ” after waking up from the nightmare that represents the guilt she welcomes, thinking she doesn’t deserve Earheart’s kindness.

NIGHTMARE [I want the nightmare to be something that asphyxiates her to show the damage this guilt and depression

has on her → she feels like she’s drowning. The nightmare will be completely dark, imitating an ocean’s depths. Nevertheless, the more damaging the memories the nightmare gives her are, the warmer the tone of the colors used is.

Some memories of Amelia and their relationship are distorted in the nightmare, giving the effect of a negative photography.

In the nightmare, she’s trying to reach towards Amelia (during this process, the colors begin to be brighter, as if she were

being relieved). When she reaches her, she’s overwhelmed by the negative image she has of Amelia, as someone who blames her for her death and makes her feel guilty.

She feels suffocated and ends closing up into herself once again, apologizing over and over. She doesn’t fight back anymore,

feeling like she deserves this.

All of this sequence is mostly in black and white, except for some of the hazy memories. No clean lineart, just rough drawings that look sketchy and dark.]

NORA: (Often, I find myself drowning.)

AMELIA: [A blurred memory, encouraging her to follow her] Nora!

NORA: (Breathless.) Wait…! I’m always chasing after you… Just for once… let me reach you! [She touches her back, barely gra-

zing her with her fingertips. At this small contact, Amelia’s image is distorted and black shadows start coming out of her and slowly overwhelm Nora.]

AMELIA: [Much more aggressively, her face entirely distorted] Nora!

NORA: [Slowly backing up, letting these shadows drown her] (Every time I shut my eyes, all I see is a past I didn’t deserve, with an ending only I deserved. I wish I were dead, but I don’t deserve a relief such as that. This is what I deserve, and it’s all I’m worth. I deserve it all. I deserve this never-ending pressure.) [Quietly sobbing, arching her back and curling up, hugging herself] Amelia… I’m sorry… I’m so sorry…

(Every night suffocating with my own guilt…).

EARHEART: [Not visibly present, only their words reaching out to wake Nora] Boss!

AWAKE

[This last sequence is calmer. The drawings have a clean, softer lineart and the pages are fully colored with mostly

warm colors and light sources that make it look brighter. I want it to look like a welcoming place who a reader who might find themselves in a similar emotional situation would feel good in, with someone who supports them (in Nora’s case, Earheart).

Gives off the feeling of relief after waking up from a very stressing nightmare, even if the negative feelings still remain present (she looks visibly tired, waking up in cold sweat after the nightmare).

The background color behind the panels isn’t black like in the nightmare sequence, it’s white.

The first time we see Earheart is when they wake her up, asking if she’s okay. They look concerned and are seen standing in the way of the light coming through the window, meaning they’re the little hope Nora has left since they’re all Amelia left behind for her.]

NORA: [Gasping for breath, laying down sweating and crying, visible eye bags. Turning her head to look at Earheart] …

Earheart…

EARHEART: [Very concerned, clutching their hat in their hands] Yes, it’s me! Boss, are you okay?

NORA: [Sitting up, groaning and wiping her tears away] … I’m fine.

EARHEART: I made tea and cookies… Want some?

NORA: … Sure. [Next panels show the tea and cookies Earheart has brought her on a plate. They look like they were

carefully baked with cute shapes. Nora notices the mug the tea is served in has a little label with a heart. Flipping the label, she reads:] (“Do your best”, huh...)

EARHEART: D-Do you like it?

NORA: [Looking at her reflection in the tea] Yeah… thanks. [Sighing, she takes a sip] (I really don’t deserve this.)

[The last panel is wider, showing the room and Earheart watching her with a happy look on their face while appa-

rently talking to her. The chapter ends in Nora’s conclusion: In short, I hate myself.]”