I love manga (well, duh!) so much I’ve based my career around it, hoping one day I too will be a great comic book creator. Tokyopop has seen fit to give others like me a chance to become the next great mangaka (manga creators) with their Rising Stars of Manga series. Several great comic book authors are decided from a panel of judges on their art, story, and method for first place in the latest volume of this series to come out.
First place is Bomango, by Rob Ten Pas, which is about an odd girl who picks up whatever trash she can find. She does her variety of dumpster diving while palling around with her friend who tries to balance out her insanity.
This tale didn’t interest me much, but I love the characters whom provide lots of funny moments. Artistically it feels very fluid, nicely paced, and almost animated. All together, however, I don’t think it deserves first place; I mean I love the characters, but the story and art are fairly average. This story gets a 3/5.
Second place is Girl/Boy, by Yasmin Saaka, which is just a simple love love story about two kids over the course of their lives and how they fall in love. It’s too short, which I can understand why, but a few more pages wouldn’t hurt.
Otherwise, I was really touched by the story and its beautiful ending. I think the artist had a hard time with the Photoshop program cause the illustration looks a little off to me for some reason. When it comes down to the manga overall, it’s really grand and for the authors hard work I give him a 4/5 because I think he deserved second place.
Third place we have Departure, by Eden which I personally found enjoyable. A young man wakes up one day to find a mysterious pair of boots in front of his door. After thinking about it, he decides to go walking in his new boots. Before he realizes it, he’s walked too far away to come back and continues on his journey. Along the way, he finds many new things to enjoy.
I can’t get enough of this one. The story lacks any conflict and because of that I love it. The guy’s just going for a walk and he learns how to enjoy the world around him; it’s actually quite romantic. Eden knows what she’s doing with a pencil as she carefully shows the strongest emphasis on the character and the environment around him. This is the first really good one I’ve seen, so I say bravo to Eden and give her a 5/5.
Ok, everything else is runners up so I’m going to review them with short phrases to sum each of them up.
- 10 Simple Rules, by JD Robinson; needs to be put in a school text book so everyone will read it, 5/5.
- The Orphans, by Anthony Go Wu; it was too darkly colored to read that it hurts my eyes, 1/5.
- The Little Miss Witch Hater, by Ryo Kawakam;i has beautiful angular Gothic art, especially on the monsters, 5/5.
- Chronicles of the Big Feet ,by Nichol; the nipples kept freaking me out, 2/5.
Rising Stars has a lot of crazy stories and I think I might sign up, so I better get started!
Thanks to Tokyopo for letting us review Rising Stars of Manga, Volume 6!
