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Following up on the licensing of The Bride's Stories, here's a multi-page article on Kauro Mori's artistic process, with videos of her drawing a sumptuous full-page panel from The Bride's Stories. In Japanese, but between the videos and photos of reference works, there's plenty for gaijin to gawk at.
Speaking of manga set in central Asia, I just found Tenma no Ketsuzoku ("Blood Relative of the Pegasus") by Keiko Takemiya. Well, sort of set there -- it initially appears to be a historical fantasy set among the Mongols, but I'm not recognizing any of the neighboring civilizations as such, so I think it's really a high fantasy templated off central Asia. Protagonist is on Altojin, a 14-year-old foundling who a leader of the warriors-in-training her age, and characters include her foster brother Roto and young prince who is acclaimed Chingis Han in the second volume. Unlicensed, like just about everything by members the Year 24 Group (all together now: darn it), with 4 (of 15) volumes scanlated.
Speaking of neighboring kingdoms, starting a little before chapter 80 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one gets a very strong feeling of entering the end of an era. Guan Yu dies, Zhang Fei dies, Cao Cao dies, all within a few months of each other, and Liu Bei is clearly marked as not long for the world, the deaths of his oath-brothers having unbalanced him a bit. Well, more than a bit. And with replacement heroes of the younger generation being a little thin on the ground, at least so far, this does not give one the warm fuzzies.
Speaking of the older generation, seen on a street corner: a white-haired man with a bushy handlebar mustache and a cane, wearing kakhis, white shirt, colorful tie, and a floppy sun-hat, cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth, reading text messages on a phone while waiting for the light to change. Clearly a character who needs to appear somewhere. Offered in the hopes that someone does just that.
Speaking of khakis, it is all very well to claim that by dressing in a bright blue corporate polo shirt and khaki Dockers one is parodying the uniform of a company drone, but when at least three other men in the building dress exactly the same way, it is difficult to sustain the personal illusion. Just sayin'.
(The subject line is supposedly an Okinawan proverb. Correct application is left as an exercise to the reader.)
---L.
Speaking of manga set in central Asia, I just found Tenma no Ketsuzoku ("Blood Relative of the Pegasus") by Keiko Takemiya. Well, sort of set there -- it initially appears to be a historical fantasy set among the Mongols, but I'm not recognizing any of the neighboring civilizations as such, so I think it's really a high fantasy templated off central Asia. Protagonist is on Altojin, a 14-year-old foundling who a leader of the warriors-in-training her age, and characters include her foster brother Roto and young prince who is acclaimed Chingis Han in the second volume. Unlicensed, like just about everything by members the Year 24 Group (all together now: darn it), with 4 (of 15) volumes scanlated.
Speaking of neighboring kingdoms, starting a little before chapter 80 of Romance of the Three Kingdoms, one gets a very strong feeling of entering the end of an era. Guan Yu dies, Zhang Fei dies, Cao Cao dies, all within a few months of each other, and Liu Bei is clearly marked as not long for the world, the deaths of his oath-brothers having unbalanced him a bit. Well, more than a bit. And with replacement heroes of the younger generation being a little thin on the ground, at least so far, this does not give one the warm fuzzies.
Speaking of the older generation, seen on a street corner: a white-haired man with a bushy handlebar mustache and a cane, wearing kakhis, white shirt, colorful tie, and a floppy sun-hat, cigarette drooping from a corner of his mouth, reading text messages on a phone while waiting for the light to change. Clearly a character who needs to appear somewhere. Offered in the hopes that someone does just that.
Speaking of khakis, it is all very well to claim that by dressing in a bright blue corporate polo shirt and khaki Dockers one is parodying the uniform of a company drone, but when at least three other men in the building dress exactly the same way, it is difficult to sustain the personal illusion. Just sayin'.
(The subject line is supposedly an Okinawan proverb. Correct application is left as an exercise to the reader.)
---L.