Chance Gayles
IMM 498
November 20th, 2019
Report on Industry Event
In late September, I and few friends attended 「京都国祭マンガ・アニメフェア２０１９」The Kyoto International Manga Anime fair 2019. The goal of attending this event was to engage with multiple booths of people that work within the Japanese comic-making industry and get advice from the editors of Japan’s top weekly manga anthologies. The event was held in Miyako Messe in Kyoto, Japan from 9:00 am – 17:00 pm and featured multiple floors of booths with representatives from leading publications. Unfortunately, due to the timeline of projects and assignments, I was not able to bring in physical work to be evaluated. However, along with me was a friend who had works from over the years which allowed us to sit down and interact with a few editors and hear some insight directly from professionals (in Japanese of course).
What impacted my learning most was some of the thinking that goes into writing these stories and how to convey ideas through paneling. One piece of advice that stuck with me was related to how the main characters of stories and the dynamics of the main supporting characters really affect the success of a story in the genre (Shonen) I would like to illustrate for. The example that was given to me was something that is so prevalent in japan media such as games and comics but I hadn’t really noticed as having an aimed purpose before then. It was pointed out to me that readers have to relate deeply with the main character (of course), and that usually there is a dynamic of three. Two competing male main characters (one usual energetic and the other usually being the cooler character), and one female character. Which is shocked me as I realized just how many prevalent the dynamic was in nearly everything I’ve seen from Shonen media.
Quick, Examples of stories with this shared dynamic
‘Naruto’ Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura
‘Kingdom Hearts’ ex. Sora, Riku, Kairi
“Pokemon – black and white 2’ ex. Nate, Hugh, Rosa
