The metamorphosis of manga Mold-Breaking Mangaka from sweden, nigeria, & t h e u. s . d i s c u s s t h e ir c r a f t by Sam MOrim When I was growing up, watching anime and reading manga gave me a connection to a worldwide, multicultural community of people. (It also got me my first boyfriend, but that’s beside the point.) I’m definitely guilty of favoring anime over manga, because I can use my Netflix subscription to stream for free, but I also adore reading manga and seeing its intricate artwork. The originally Japanese medium has spread in recent decades, attracting new mangaka (manga authors) from all around the world. Here are three up-and-comers.
Brandon Chen I hadn’t noticed that the creators of my favorite anime and manga were almost all Japanese men until I met American mangaka Brandon Chen. A chance meeting via TikTok last year opened up a whole new world for me. Chen, who is Chinese-American, started out selling homemade comics on the playground for a quarter and is now an internationally-known author. His new series, Somnia—which is about a teenager named Ren who receives a mystic lantern that can make his dreams into reality—has gotten him a lot of buzz. Chen is also a novelist, and he doesn’t illustrate his own manga; he works with outside artists to make his stories come to life. He is dedicated to his craft and finds that everyday, he continues to improve as a writer. Sometimes, he says, “the stories write themselves,” and in the end, “the product is much different from the original plan.” His influences range from the manga series Nanatsu no Taizai (“The Seven Deadly Sins”) to one of my personal favorites, Dante’s Inferno. He also has a vibrant social media presence, and with it, he is inspiring a whole new generation of manga readers. When we met, he had already built up a following of around 573,000 TikTok users. That number has nearly doubled since. “It’s quite interesting how having a following really makes you stand out,” he tells me. “Now 26
The Lexington Line • S/S 21 • vol 7 • no 2
people are offering to hire me for manga projects or sponsor their products. Without TikTok, I don’t think I’d be at the same level of recognition.” In the future, Chen hopes to see animated adaptations of his stories—or simply to collaborate on an anime project as a writer. He finds it encouraging that the manga industry is starting to spread around the world. “I believe that we’ll start to see a disruption in the mangaka space where many more international folks start breaking into the industry,” he says. “Manga can always be professionally translated, so I don’t believe it will hinder any publication opportunities.”
