Harsh truth of manga/Anime in America-- A Guest Post by Kenshinr07

     
      This was originally posted on deviantart.com. I posted this entry on here because, as part of being ambitiously raw, the truth has to known.
      
       Also, check out KENSHINR07 manga that he created and wrote called Masterless Technique, as I heard a lot of praises of this book. All links are at the bottom of this post as well as the original post of this article.

 by ~KENSHINRO7

Well there are going to be some people who are not going to like what I have to say. The point is that these are harsh facts that we as creators have to deal with wither we like it or not. I was speaking to one of my Pro artist friends who happens to had worked for Disney and he does design work and Animation.

He is not working with Disney now but he knows the inner workings of the studio etc.. At any rate he and I speak about Anime and manga all the time, mostly personal works that we want to work on etc.. Well he brought up a very valid point that even I didn't consider really.

That point was that fans of manga/anime normally want their manga/anime from Japan. Now I know you are probably thinking hey so what? But he really made me start to think. See here I'm writing all these manga/anime stories and video game projects.
I was wondering why no matter how great my work is I'm not getting or receiving what I feel and some of the readers and fans feel should be the just due for my manga works.

I couldn't understand that if you give out work that's highly enjoyed and produced then the crowds should come running right?
Well that's not so much the case according to my friend he said it best by saying fans want authentic manga Anime etc..  Please key in on what's being said here (AUTHENTIC) MANGA/ANIME).

The word (AUTHENTIC) really stood out to me when he said it. See that means that the work comes straight out of Japan. The fans or readers only want work from Japan and nothing else.

Now here's the problem we have here folks for the ones who don't understand what I'm about to point out.  See here we are American's, Mexicans, Indians, etc.. doing manga comics that were inspired by Japanese culture.

Then you have so many amature mangaka's that want to go to Japan to live and create manga which is very difficult for a foreigner to even make it there but there are some that do a small few.

At any rate my point is this I can't speak for everyone that makes manga. Because a lot of people artists writer's do make manga for fun.

There's nothing wrong with that but the ones like myself who are trying to do this for a living and are serious about it have a much harder time now knowing these facts about   (AUTHENTIC) manga being chosen over your work.

Now I'm going to get into the part of hurting some people feelings here which I warned about above but I mean no harm I'm just telling the truth.

There are a lot of fans and artists etc.. that recently started to make manga and so forth due to the fact that BLEACH was so popular. In fact I can honestly say I didn't see any personal made manga or one shot projects take place before the popularity of bleach.

You may ask why I'm I bringing up Bleach and then the wide spread of fans that wanted to make their own manga based off of that show? Well here's the reason.
That's their only reason.lol Because of Bleach and how awesome the series was.  I feel it's kind of crappy.

Sorry to hurt any feelings but hey I said it. It's crappy that the only reason you want to make your own manga series or one shot is based off of your love of Bleach. I can say this and have full right for my statement.

Because I was writing these type of stories before Bleach even came on the scene. I have been writing for awhile now. So this is not new to me doing this type of work. I started with writing video game stories and then transferred my skills to Anime movie plots and after speaking to several people in the Anime field and business.

I was told to have a manga completed. So then I started to write manga comic scripts. Which is much different from Anime movie plots and the transfer was a lot harder if you ever written a Anime movie script then you know what I'm talking about.

Any way I went through the proper phases as a writer. I didn't just jump on the manga train yesterday or when Bleach became very popular manga/anime series. So the upstarts kind of bother me at times due to the fact that I have been working hard for years and they are fairly new to this making manga stuff. I'm not upset with them or saying that a Anime can't inspire you or anything of that nature.

What I'm saying is that it's a lot more work then just loving an Anime to a point of wanting to create a manga etc..  This may sound like I speaking another language to those of you who are new to this manga making stuff.  But again it's more to making a manga or Anime then just being cool looking or having action, comedy, Emo etc...  Bleach is not going to teach anyone how to make a manga I'm sorry that's just a fact.

A lot of artists manga makers don't even know why the show was titled Bleach when the show has nothing to do with Bleach which real  bleach is colorless by the way. But I understand what the mangaka was driving at.

See he gave you multiple stories in one series.  This is a big reason why it's called Bleach there's no specif point of the title. But the action and relationships make up for it and well Bleach just sounds cool. Ok fans that don't know this fact will title their manga's names that don't fit their story.

Why? Because they watched Bleach and don't know the meaning behind why it was titled that. It's pretty simple. See when you write a title it should fit whatever the story is about. Not be called something odd or out of place that doesn't fit the content.

Or if you do title a manga by a weird name then at least make it interesting story wise enough to be popular or main stream like a Bleach manga/Anime.  But yeah I had to get that out of the way cause it bothered me seeing how you just say hey I'll make a manga now since I saw Bleach let me jump on the band wagon.

But any way I'm getting away from the point the artist I spoke to made.  About the (AUTHENTIC) Manga etc.. I'm going to show all of you the real reason why it's more difficult for we as non Japanese to make it in the manga/Anime field.  Well before I start posting links let me say this.  Most American, and some Foreigner's don't want to or are not willing to put n the type of work needed to have a high quality project that would even be considered any where near a level of Japanese manga or Anime.

This is the reason a lot of them fail even though their artwork work is top notch.  You see when a writer suggest  a edit or change the Japanese artist does it with out any question. When a head editor or director has a problem then guess what the artist get's put in line and does what's needed. 10/10 the editor or director is right and knows what they are talking about.

Here in the states and some foreigner's make a big deal out of having to straighten out a line let alone anything else that you ask them to edit. This is a problem.

The Japanese do what's asked of them and needed and then you have the top quality   (AUTHENTIC) work that you can see here [link]

Now the reason I posted this link was to show people that as soon is you look at this Anime trailer  it makes you feel a certain way.

You know that by looking at this work that it's inspiring and it makes you want to stop and see what it's about. Hard work was placed into this project and it's  (AUTHENTIC) for this reason and many more.

I will post more to show what most armature mangaka in the states lack on the inspiration side of making manga and how they are lazy. Here's more proof of (AUTHENTIC) work [link]

This has gone on a little longer then I expected but I'm going to wrap things up with this last point here. Please watch these video links.
Also I'm sure there are plenty more series that I didn't name but that's not my point of posting the Anime videos. My point is to show the (AUTHENTIC) work that was produced by the artist and other members of the projects.

See up and coming mangaka's you need to take note that if you really want to make it then you have to be  (AUTHENTIC) which means redraw and edit work when needed, work hard and out do yourself. Only produce top work and nothing less even when you don't feel like it.

You think that the Japanese mangaka's don't get tired or don't want to go back and edit sometimes? Hey we are all human no matter what ethnicity we are. But the main point is that they push through whatever it is and still come on top to produce high quality work that eventually comes to the fans and they love and enjoy it.

So take a note from these pros and change your work ethic and habits maybe then you can be seen more so on the side of  works getting noticed on a larger scale.  But yeah there's a lot of work to do to get any where near the point and quality of work that you see in these Animes or Manga.

So don't make excuses put in the time do it and do it right. Then at least you know what you put into the work and it should have no excuse for being a top work that even fans that want (AUTHENTIC) Japanese manga will turn their heads and buy. I 've spoke enough hope everyone get's the point of this journal.

Thanks.


Kenshinr07's original post

Again, check out his book. There's also a trailer if you're curious.
Masterless Technique: Manga
                                   Trailer