Black Clover vs MHA - Comparison of the First Chapter

My Hero Academia is a popular shounen manga, but I believe its first chapter highlights some of the issues I see in shounen manga. What strikes me at first is how in the initial first page the author feels the need to tell the audience about the setting. It not only tells you about the setting but gives some explanation for it, in this case it says the age of heroes started after the sudden appearance of people with quirks, special abilities people started to be born with.

The problem for me in this instance is that these elements are all simply told to the audience in the first pages of the series, it feels so superficial that it hardly leaves any impression. It is a shoddy and honestly infantilizing way to set up the world within the series.

It also introduces the character poorly, the first look of the main character is him getting bullied by other kids with super abilities because he seems to be standing up for another student even though he is called quirkless. I do not dislike that initial introduction, but within the same chapter it explains what quirks are and why he is quirkless. The fact there is no real mystery about quirks or questions surrounding them quickly makes it feel like just a way to just set up the superhero world. It also doubles as a way to make the main character an underdog since in a world full of heroes, he has no special ability to speak of. It just feels too much like a device and not an element of the story.

However, why does he want to be a superhero? That is not given much thought over, it seems like it comes from what is displayed briefly in panels showing his childhood idolization of superheroes... It is quite a shallow way to build the main character's main motivation that is supposed to move the story forward. Perhaps, it might have been better to actually develop this, because otherwise once again it feels like an element to get the story going. Its basically to do this story, we need the main character to want to be a hero. In addition, his lack of any special ability makes the task to become here a lot tougher but that is the story... until he is given one? The fact he is given one does downplay his underdog status, which seems a bit counterintuitive in my eyes.

For me the problem is that this is such a poor start to the narrative. It is using a 'tell everything' form of storytelling in a visual medium that is awkward but ever present in shounen manga. For instance, why does the series need to explain in the first chapter that quirks started to appear which eventually led to a world of heroes? You can see that its a world full of heroes, you do not need to deliver that sort of information in the first few pages of the series... Exposition has been fed over time otherwise it feels just like simply the author's explanation for why the series has the setting. In general what this means is that in general the world the series takes place lacks any real depth. It seems like a template world of shonen battle manga but with a superhero makeover.

Black Clover has similar problems in its first chapter but let's go through the chapter together. The first chapter of Black Clover starts the story by narrating the defeat of an unknown mage that came to be called the Wizard King. Back in the present we see the celebration of the return of someone that is called the Wizard King. In the following page we see the celebrations from a place outside the city and two men working in fields comment on the rowdiness of the celebrations and say that the kingdom exists due to the generations of Wizard King that have protected them.

Then we are introduced to the main character, Asta, who talks about challenging Yuno, his friend, which serves as an obviously contrived way to tell the audience is not able to use magic. It also showcases that Asta and Yuno were left at the front of a church on the same day. Subsequently, there is an event that comes out of nowhere where 15 year old people receive their grimoires and Yuno receives his and Asta does not. However, after this another strikingly obvious contrived event happens when Yuno is attacked by someone that wants to rob his grimoire to sell it. The idea that there would be a black market of grimoire for the rich is believable, but I doubt the author thought of this as a macro event to hint at the inequality in the world that he could later develop... spoiler he does not.

A despondent Asta sees the attack on Yuno and tries to save him. After getting a beating by the robber he suddenly receives a black grimoire and a large blade that seems to annul magic, so he uses it to fight the man...

The way it starts off with a tale of the past is much more interesting than My Hero Academia. It has this battle which highlights this mage that defeated the demon who became the Wizard King. In the following page the author uses the celebrations and the perhaps awkward exchange between farmers to show the prestige and role of the position. I believe saying the demon was defeated was unnecessary,, it would have made the demon skull page a lot more impactful if that was what told the audience of the result of the battle. However, these first few pages do give a general understanding of what the title wizard king means without spelling it out... It is basically an army general, so not really a king.

After this the introduction of Asta and how we learn of his inability to use magic is mostly comical. However, his inability to use magic is shown to be notable which means magic use is quite widespread. That made me curious about how magic works, but all we are hinted at is that at Asta's age not being able to use is a strange which reinforces that being able to use magic is natural. It also says that grimoires are not necessary to use magic but they strengthen it which is less interesting, but it has its own implications... In a fight it might not be a bad idea to target the grimoire, because if they can be robbed from someone they are not naturally attached or an ethereal thing. I wonder if the author thought about this when he did that... Let's get back on topic.

We are also told Asta wants to become the Wizard King, which explains why the author decided to start with what exactly the title of Wizard King means earlier in the chapter. The audience does not know his motivations since they are not really shown, at least not in any serious way, so are we supposed to fill in his reasons for that? Perhaps, we are supposed to assume that this character from quite low class would idealise an army general figure?

Later we see that Yuno also wants to become the Wizard King, and a flashback acts to show his motivation. In this flashback we see that Yuno's necklace is stolen by someone because it is too nice for an orphan. Asta fights him and gets it back not without getting beaten up badly before though. Both them promise each other to strive to become the Wizard King. What this tells me is that both dream of moving up the social ladder from what seems to be their quite low status, and power is the easiest way. However, in this competition between the two friends, Asta is a clear underdog due to his inability to use magic whilst Yuno is talented in magic.

In comparison with My Hero Academia, Black Clover for me has the better chapter when it comes to narrative quality. However it is weaker when it comes to characters, when it comes to the main characters the author makes Asta too comical to take him seriously, and the spend on Asta's comedic antics means Yuno received zero to no attention. Midoriya and Bakugo leave a greater impression, one for his meekness yet his courage, and the other wants to become a hero yet seems to lack any heroic qualities.

In the character designs and art My Hero Academia also wins for me, it has a more distinct artstyle and the characters have iconic visual characteristics. Overall, whilst Black Clover eventually might be more competent in its first chapter with the narrative, it eventually leans on the major things that define action shounen manga such as characters, emotional and visual impact and My Hero Academia just plays those much better than it.

France and Bande Dessinées

Becassine Album

When the anime adaptation of Radiant was announced it was quite a novel and perhaps surprising piece of news for many anime fans. It was not the first time a French work was adapted into anime, french and many foreign works were animated by Japanese studios in the 70s and 80s.

France has a close history with comics that came to be accepted as a form of popular storytelling but also valued as a piece of literature. In order to see how this happened we have to start with the rise of bande dessinees comics in France and Belgium.

The origins of bandes dessinees in France came in the form of journals that included illustrated strips often with speech or commentary underneath for the reader to follow along with the illustrations. For instance, a journal that published stories was La Semaine de Suzette, it was aimed primarily at young upper-class girls and its pages were filled with cooking recipes, agony aunt crosswords and cut outs for dolls clothes and most importantly for us bande dessinees or BD for short. Suzette would give birth most notably to Becassine, a Bds that follows a young Breton housemaid's daily life. It is a character that found significant success and it is still widely recognized today, the series itself was presented like I described above without the perennial speech bubble.

Picture of BD featured in La Semaine de Suzette   

At around the time a publication called L'Epatant emerged, however, unlike Suzette it was aimed at young and the not so young. L'Epatant was where the Les Pieds Nickeles, a BD that followed a trio of anarchists that are also indolent crooks and slackers first emerged... The trio was iconic and Nickeles is renowned as one of the longest running comic series in the world. Behind this work was Louis Forton who is called a pioneer of BDs due to the path he paved for future cartoonists that would continue Les Pieds Nickeles and his other work renowned work Bibi Fricotin after his death.

Picture of Journal Les Belles Images

La Semaine de Suzette, L'Epatant were not the only publications that published Bds around. There were others in this period pre first world war like Le Rites and Les Belles Images. Some were more focused on bds and stories than others but they did all feature Bds in every weekly release, and that provided a distribution method for other journals in the future to copy.

Page of an Issue of L'Epatant

Daily publications would more actively take up dbs in the post war period and include them in their weekly supplement issues, and these issues usually marketed at younger audiences provided many notable series. The first series to take note of in this period was Zig et Puce, a series that appeared in the Le Dimanche Illustre that featured the adventure of two young boys, Zig and Puce who were accompanied by Alfred, a penguin in their travels around the globe. The series by Alain Saint Ogan was one of the first ones to actually start using speech bubbles that whilst widely used in the United States was used only sparingly by a few authors, Alain Saint Ogan being one of them. Zig et Puce would not find the same sort of success as the previous title I have spoken about so far, but it did serve as an influence to one of the most iconic BDs ever, The adventures of TinTin according to its author Herge.

 

Series like Zig et Puce and Tin Tin both were born out of a growing period for Bds in France. Daily newspaper publications had started to feature Bds in their weekly youth supplement publication. One thing to keep in mind is that these bds naturally were fit to appeal to the demographic of readers of the publication. For instance, Le Petit Vingtieme, was the supplement of Le Vingtieme Siecle a catholic ring-wing newspaper from Brussel, Tin Tin in the Land of Soviets was a product made to appeal to youth within the Christian and capitalist demographic. These weekly supplements aimed at young people were increasingly seeing their sales being driven by the illustrated stories, and publication came to include more of them over time.

However, a tsunami arrived in the third with the arrival of Le Journal de Mickey in France in 1934. Paul Winkler purchased the rights to many strips from the United States amongst which the flagship title was the ones from Walt Disney. Mickey was published in this new journal as its main flagship strip along other imported strips, all together the comic strips made up four out of eight pages of the publication. The other pages featured a french serialized novel, reply to letters, jokes and the result of regular competitions in which readers could win small prizes.

A page of Le Journal de Mickey   

Le Journal de Mickey was significant because it showcased a different style of strip from the bds prominent in France that could be described as histoires en images. The textual context that was needed for most Bds, was part of the strip with the use of speech bubbles which alongside the colour and greater art detail added a kind of exoticism around the strips. After all, many of the strips in France at the time relied on small text outside the image but were monochrome and overall drawn with less detail. Mickey was received incredibly well, the format of the publication helped a lot with the interactions with the public that made it be accepted despite its initial exoticism.

The success of the publication by Hickler, especially Journal de Mickey, naturally shook the entire landscape of bds in France. Old publications found themselves having to change as they lost readers, and Mickey's success became enviable as it reached over four hundred thousand copies sold per issue, a number that was unmatched across the whole of Europe that started to publish strips of Mickey as well by a long margin.

However, the late 30s would be a little surprising for France, the invasion of Poland by Germany meant France declared war and attacked Germany. A large part of France would be occupied by the Nazi regime and they set up a regime in Vichy. During this period many Bd publications were disrupted not only because of the drastic change in government and state control over media that some companies rejected but also because of a shortage of paper. Publications of bds continued at first but shortages of paper meant it had to rationed and the government would allocate it to publications whose content it favoured. For instance Journal de Mickey moved to the south the non occupied zone as Paul Winkler was jewish. However, whilst some publications struggled some actually excelled during this period, one notable one was Le Temeraire.

The cover for an issue of Le Temeraire

Le Temeraire is perhaps not as widely known now but it was a publication similar to the sort of type of Mickey that had become a standard. It featured many with anti-Semitic elements imbued in the stories of the bds featured in issues. Whatever one might think of Le Temeraire was a popular publication, its sales reached over two hundred thousand per issue, and to a large extent it was because of the quality of the works published. It took all the elements of Journal de Mickey but added to it with themed issues that gave it a large blend of styles and stories. Overall whilst controversial and short in duration Le Temeraire  it ceased publication in 1944 it did have an impact in the growth of Bds in France. 

Another contribution that Le Temeraire left was the fact it was a mostly French publication, and that would spark debates in post world war 2 that were already ongoing debates in pre-war. The popularity of Bds had caused debates about their possible influence on children,  the introduction of Mickey and other American comic strips in France during the 30s only further sparked such debates because it gave rise to fears that it would drift youth away from national culture. In Europe in general fears of Americanization were prominent and states tried to fight back against it pre world war. In post world war those debates continued and in France that had a strong cultural nationalism and left wing groups and catholic  forces joined together for a restriction in American comics. It was not just a protectionism measure however, conservatives forces pushed for restriction when it came to sexual and content with excessive violence.  

The budding industry of Bds publication did not drop dead as a result of that. A large part of this was because Le Temeraire had provided the answer due to its singular focus on only using French works. Journals in the format style of Le Temeraire emerged post world war and quickly adapted themselves to the new laws. Works like Les Pionniers De L'Esperance, Guerre a la Terre both sci-fi stories and others emerged in this period and they took the lessons of the successful publication that came before by blending in various styles of comics and including various elements like jokes, quizzes and prizes in every issue. 

Les Pionneiers de L'Esperance

In a stroke of coincidence, the bd journal that became the most popular in the 50s onwards was 'Vaillant' that managed to reach over two hundred thousand copies sold per issue. Vaillant was linked to the L'Humanite, a daily news and it and Vaillant were sponsored by the French Communist Party. The previously mentioned Les Pionniers de L'Esperance was published in Vaillant but the most notable series published in it was Pif le Chien. Pif followed the adventures of a dog and various other animals, the left wing leaning aspect of the series would be shown often by problems caused by selfish and harmful actions taken by  groups of animals, with the solutions needing the cooperation of everyone.  The iconic nature of Pif as character in the publication meant Vaillant would eventually change its name to Pif-gadget in the 60s which highlighted the special status of the series. 

There were many other publications like Coeurs Vaillant, which funnily enough was a right wing catholic publication despite the similarity in name to Vaillant. Other publications like Le Journal De Mickey managed to restart in France and Spirou the home of Tin Tin, and series like Lucky Luke from Belgium also flowed into France in the 50s. 

Cover of an issue of Couers Vaillants

In the late 50s, a new publication would emerge that became one of the biggest sources of bds in the 60s and 70s. That publication was called Pilote, it was formed by various veteran artists that joined together to create a new journal. One of the first bds that stood out from the new publication was Tanguy et Laverdure, a story about two pilots for the French Air Forces and their adventures.  It was followed tith Barba Rouge and Not much later it would give birth to classics such as Asterix, all popular titles that have left a lasting print in France's Ninth Art the BDs.

Cover of Pilote featuring Tanguy

Returning to the law of 1949 that restricted content depicted in publications, gradually over the years this censorship over bds declined. In the 1960s, bds like Barbarella that depicted the heroine well satirical series often leaned in content of sexual nature. Naturally, that led to more varied and Bds that could be aimed at an young adult demographic which Pilote was already trying to court with the works it published.

However, whilst bds were on the rise the 70s came knocking and it brought with it big economic problems for the world at large. The reasons for the crisis that would eventually lead to a new orthodoxy in the economy is nothing that is relevant to our discussions but let's just say it involved oil and inflation.

Economic woes hit home and entertainment as an industry suffered. When it came to Bds, the biggest crisis was the one faced by publications, which had to shift from weeklies as it was no longer viable. Pilote and others shifted to monthly but even that was not enough, and many publications went under in the 70s and 80s. That did not spell the doom of Bds though, publication of albums that were made up of many compiled chapters of a bd in one book started to rise.

Bande Desinees seemed to no longer need to be published in weekly journals anymore. Bds had garnered an established audience that continued to want to read Bds despite the fall of the weekly journals. This continued into the 90s with growth of album publication increasing significantly over time. In part this was driven also by the left wing government, culture minister Jack Lang that built on the protectionist side of 1949 laws by building bodies to help in the material side of publishing Bds. This was a result of a greater recognition of Bds as a medium of the arts, it officially became the Ninth Art and a cultural element of France to be protected.

The results of these measures have shown themselves to be great. Publication of albums have spiked from the 400s in the early 80s to over 4000s in the 2000s. Bds continue to grow and the space they have gained in libraries and bookstores, but also university courses for striving artists and festivals and museums on Bds have solidified itself as a cultural marker in France.

Images taken from BNF Galica - Linked below

https://gallica.bnf.fr/accueil/en/content/accueil-en?mode=desktop

Thoughts on Ippon Again Anime Staff and PV

The Ippon Again anime project has finally received an update with a lot of information. Now, we know the studio that will handle the animation production and also the people handling the key roles and the voice cast for the main characters. 

So lets have a look at them, since I have had not much to talk about when it comes to champion stuff in recent times. 

Anime Poster    

Cast
Towa Hiura: Chiyuki Miura (Karakuri Circus)
Anna Nagumo: Nene Hieda (Jaku-Chara Tomozaki-kun)
Michi Sonoda: Ayasa Itou (Shoujo☆Kageki Revue Starlight)
Sanae Takigawa: Yukari Anzai (Lapis Re:LiGHTs)

Staff
Director: Takeru Ogiwara (Jouran: The Princess of Snow and Blood episode director)
Series Composition: Aya Satsuki (Ultraman Geed tokusatsu drama)
Character Design, Chief Animation Director: Airi Takegawa (Carole & Tuesday key animation)
Music: Shun Narita (Noblesse)
Sound Production: Pony Canyon
Animation Production: Bakken Record

Music Production - Pony Canyon 

Taken from My Anime List 

If ones looks for Bakken Record, they might seem like a new studio with barely any experience but Bakken Record is just a new label for Tatsunoko Production, an experienced studio. Under the label of Bakken Record, they have released a film called Pandora no Akubi in 2019, and a tv series Joran: The Princess of Snow. The animation in the latter was reasonably well done, its story was not exactly interesting at least for me but it was an original project so that should not be relevant to Ippon Again.

However, instead of just looking at the studio name, we should look at the staff since most animators are hired freelancers because of the precarious state of labour in the animation industry but that is something for another article. The director Takeru Ogiwara has never headed a series before, he has worked as an episode director, and photography director for a number of series before. Aya Satsuki has more experience related to her role in both anime and tv drama series but in those works she was not the sole scriptwriter or the series composer. Consequently, she and Takeru Ogiwara are taking their roles for the first time. 

Airi Takegawa is the the chief animation director and the one in charge of character design, she worked on Joran but as an assistant animator director role, so like her colleagues in this project, this role is a step up for her. Shun Narita is experienced when it comes to music, but not to a significant extent and I do not see myself as fit to comment on the work he has done because I am not an anime music connoisseur. These comments can also be applied to the presence of Pony Canyon as the group heading music production. 

In regards to the cast, like with music I am not fit to comment on the voice acting skills of the cast. However, voice actors and actress are used as magnets to attract attention of fans to a series but in this case most of the cast seem to be novices or at least not well known voice actresses.  

Things do not look necessarily promising for this series from analyzing the staff and cast but alongside the news, a new design preview view was released. In a short video of thirty seconds, the preview video shows animated shots of the first panels of the first chapter of the series with voice over of the four main character chatting playing on top of it. The voice of the girls sound fine and so does the animation but of course, this is a small video without any character motion. However, I do not expect this series to look any worse than your average anime.

When it comes to boost for the manga sales, it is rather difficult to predict. Ippon Again does not sell a lot and that is why the fact it even received an anime is an incredible feat in itself. Its lack of popularity and visibility might be a upside since it can reach many people that did not know it existed. Recent anime from Champion have managed to give some boost in manga sales, so it will be interesting to see if  Ippon Again can keep up the recent trend though that is naturally tied to the quality of the anime.

Considering the overall package included in this project, I would not expect much from it in the technical department.  What will be essential is how the anime plays the story, if it has a good pace that allows it to blend the slice of life and character interactions with the sport elements in a way that resembles the manga's strongest point, It could possibly attract interest in the manga and lead to a boost in sales. The series is airing in 2023 so we will find out soon enough if the world does not end before then. 

 

Stuff I Have Read Recently

Formless Form by Fongqi Dongman    

This is another manhua that I read recently (well within the last few months) . It is a series focused around daoism, the origin of its title coming from Laozi's 'Dao De Ching' the most important book for daoism. Formless form in particular focuses on the exorcist and magical aspects of it. The main character is a strong master of daoism talisman arts since he is part of the maoshan school / shangqing school - a real daoist school and the name maoshan being the place the school established itself. The author's certain level of knowledge does allow him to build a somewhat consistent worldview at least at the onset of the series.

Moving on to the characters, in this series the main character is the carefree, lax title that likes first and foremost to enjoy himself. He lives nonchalantly and he can live like that because he is absurdly powerful. He is sort of a powerful card that the organization that is tasked with managing supernatural cases turns to when difficult tasks involving strong evil spirits come up. The first arc that is built up from the first chapter involves a difficult case involving a spirit that takes over the body of a dying girl. This arc runs until chapter 20s or so. In a sense,

 
In a clear comparison I believe this series is similar to shounen manga but it has better pacing since it does not have to rush because of poll results. For example, since this first arc builds up a starting point for the series, in a Japanese battle shounen series it would have put those 20 or so chapters into a single long first chapter. So it takes more time to establish the world and the actors involved. But it still is a heavily action focused series, so the narrative is not really anything new and the characters are to a certain extent the generic type. Overall, it's an alright read, it is definitely not any worse than most Japanese battle shounen series.

I have Twin Girlfriends by Tian Kong Shuman Gong Factory     

This series was a surprise for me, it did look like a wish fulfillment series from the title and image. but it was not at least not blatantly so. Of the first 20 or so chapters, I was impressed. The first chapter begins with the main character saying he wants to break up, his puzzled girlfriend dismisses it and leaves for work saying they can talk about things later.

At work, the main character is given a promotion by his boss for his latest successful short film and they hold a celebration for him. However, the main character, a bit depressed, turns to alcohol and after having a few too many drinks cannot make his way home by himself. His boss, who is a friend he knew from university, takes him home. It might sound like this happens in the first chapter but these things actually happen over the first 5 or 6 chapters.

At this point, we are kind of told why the main character is a bit dejected and its because a man that works with his girlfriend tells him that she is not happy with him and that he is holding back her ability to shine. This only exacerbates an inferiority complex of the main character in comparison to how able his girlfriend is. In his drunken state, at home we finally see the twins that live together with him but he obviously does not know that they are twins. The events that unfold after that is as the summary and the title of the series suggests, he finds out his girlfriend (s) are actually twins.

There is actually a reason the twins live the way they do and it can be stupid at surface level but looking introspectively it does raises a few questions. Overall, I like the slower narrative, it could have been a lot faster and stupider but it took over 7 or so chapters to show the twins and a few more for him to find out their secret. So it takes its time and its better for it because it does not rush into dramatic developments, it tries to first show relationships and demonstrate their inner workings. It did stand out in my mind in comparison to other series in this genre, regardless if they are either Chinese or Japanese.

The art is good, and whilst the opening chapter cover is usually fan service-y, the series itself is not as heavy on fanservice. I had very low expectations coming in and it managed to counter them by showing itself to be an alright romance series that tries to be at least more mature. In addition, the slower pace and how smooth it flowed is what kept me reading despite the fact I usually do not read more than one chapter of a series like this. I stopped at 20 because I had to do some other thing and I never returned for no real reason.

Champion in 2021 - A Quiet Year

WSC 2021/27

2021 was a normal year for Champion for the most part with some interesting moments here and there. The main notable moments were the announcements of "Ippon" Again! anime, Grappler Baki 30th Anniversary and the return of Itagaki Paru as well as the sudden appearance of Oshikiri Rensuke.

How has the magazine changed?

The year was rather normal and there was not much change, only one long running series ended excluding Yuuenchi, so the magazine for the most part only changed as far as cancelled series were replaced by other stuff. Some of these replacements like Kurobane Hakusho, Isekai Chef that begun earlier in the year, the former which was already cancelled and the latter is likely heading in the same direction cemented a slow change in the magazine. However that was the first half of the year, in the second half there were 4 new series, Hachigatsu no Cinderella Nine S, SANDA, Lupin Sansei Neighbour World Princess and Geniearth. Two are new series by veteran authors, one of which had recently finished her big hit Beastars that ran in Champion, whether they will be successful is up in the air at moment. The other two are manga adaptation of multimedia projects and whilst i doubt these are going to be long term projects, they do shake up the magazine in the short term. 

The biggest shake up to the magazine was probably not caused by a new series however, it was by a series that exploded in popularity and it achieved a whole different status in the magazine. That series was Tougen Anki, the battle urban fantasy series that draws from the Momotarou folkloric story, it exploded in social media and its sales grew to great levels that was topped with it receiving a cover which together with the load of colour pages commissioned has probably drained a lot from the author. who had to take a break for a week during the year. These were the changes in the magazine in the year and it was by all means a rather stale and boring year for the magazine when it comes to any seeing any real big change to the roster.  Hopefully next year, with more things looking like they could wrap up maybe there will further changes.

Anime!

The only anime announcement in the magazine was "Ippon" Again! back in the beginning of July. It was one of the series that I highlighted as possibly receiving an anime in 2021, but it was very much based on its content and of course the biggest hindrance to it was its low sales. It seems the former won out in the end and it will be receiving an anime but we do not know if it will be a TV series or something else yet, so that is still up in the air. 

Opinion

Personally, the year of 2021 was very weak, the new series for the most part are rather boring. The loss of Rokudou was felt even thought the series had lost a lot of luster for me in this run up to the end. Hopefully, Nakamura-sensei returns with something in due time, and given how quick his turnaround from pro debut to series was, I doubt it will take too long. 

I hope if Nakamura-sensei returns that it does not end up like Itagaki sensei's return. What do I mean by that? Sanda embodies the weakness of Beastars which was the convoluted storyline and a whole lot of shock factor. The good parts of Beastars which were the initial parts were abandoned, so its just a boring series.

The other new series for the most part were annoyances. Manga adaptation of multi media projects feel like filler to try and get the fans from those projects to read the magazine, and whilst this is not new it has this time taken up a lot more space than I feel is deserved. 

So overall, 2021 was a slog to go through, one of the worst years in recent years bar 2017 which was partially caused by the shift in the editorial department. 

Review of Bilibili Comics' Official English Platform

Bilibili Comics EN Version Review

Bilibili Comics Logo with their Brand Mascot

After the latest post on webcomic, I wanted to continue and write some more on webcomic. So I decided to check out the quite recent Bilibili comics EN which is Bilibili's attempt to internationalise its webcomic brand. I will not compare it to Wecomics, which is Tencent's place for reading their comics in english. The one interesting difference is that Tencent does not really care for creating a brand unlike Bilibili that places a lot more emphasis on its brand, but that is not relevant in this post.

However, I do want to highlight that I will not compare firstly because Wecomics is strictly for mobiles through its app whilst Bilibili has a website for PC readers. In addition, Bilibili Comics is still very much under construction but it is functional and open to the public, so I will highlight some issues it has but I will not harp on about it.

When you first open the Bilibili website, the main page looks simple and that is not a surprise since it pretty much is the same template as its Chinese alteration. The main problem as I see it is the english lettering in the titles. They do not look great since they were not fitted to be a logo like in the Chinese version, so it just inserted in its place with an english title with some similar colours, and sometimes it does not even replace it since the Chinese logo is left there, what makes this worse, and I am no font expert but the font used is repeated in a lot of titles and it just does not look any good. So the cover images do not look too good aesthetically speaking.

Image from PC version - The image slider

In addition, the main point of the page at first the image slider works but the images are not displayed fully. As you see below some of the image is cut out including bits of the title. In the phone some of the images show fully but others also have the same problem. Another issue is in the wording of the genre 'teen' which does not tell you anything about the type of series, so it is useless and should be changed or deleted.

Moving down, after the 'You May Like' , 'Popular' and 'Editor Picks' that is similar to the Chinese alteration, there are genre based recommendations. The problem here is some weird wording such as 'Story rich' and 'Hot Blooded: I am a superhero.' Hot blooded is a word used in Japanese and Chinese for battle orientated series that get you pumped, they have passion and that are growing stronger like things like One Piece, Naruto. In English speaking this word is not used as much to refer to these titles, so I would suggest another word to refer to it and to take the 'i am a superhero' part. The other 'Story rich' is more awkward and it does not really give any idea of what it is supposed to mean especially since it feels like the series in it are so varied that it is irrelevant as a gender recommendation. Also the under case 'rich' and 'I am superhero' is awkward itself because others like 'Adventure In Another World' have all words capitalised, so it needs to be the same otherwise it sticks out.

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You can refresh for a new selection of titles under these subtitles, so that is something... though there are not many titles in the platform as of yet so you will see titles reappearing after a refresh or two. It has a schedule tab but that's pretty much irrelevant, some series are updated daily until they catch up to the latest chapter the scanlators had released and so on. Others that are not updated daily and might not have schedules are a bit weird since it can say 'updated whenever', which is not exactly good to see. But I can overlook these until the platform feels more complete since stuff is still completely free to read.

Overall, the platform is simple yet not plain, the colours are nice and its easy to navigate. so it is quite a nice interface but I did not expect otherwise since they probably just re-used the base of the Chinese version and that is a good interface much better than. This is the case for both the PC and Mobile versions, the mobile version is a bit better since its a bit more polished. I hope it eventually fixes my issues with some technical and style choices, and that it eventually gets the same features as the Chinese alteration such as top series rankings and so on.

A key thing to note from this platform is that Bilibili is working together with scanlator groups that worked on their series. They are actively promoting this too, so in essence they are getting the work these guys had done and placing it in this new platform. I do not know exactly the details of this collaboration but that is beside the point, I will be analysing the translation but most notably the quality of the english.

 

The scanlator groups its collaborating with

The quality varies because different groups did different works. Overall, from the 20 or so works I tried, I believe most had good English translation in terms of the quality of the English, only at certain times did a sentence feel awkward or there was a typo. The typesetting was decent for most series. The only one that stood out as bad was the series 'I am Not The Overlord.' Where they struggled to make things fit the bubble and the cleaning was lazy. it needs to be better because the platform needs to have a standard of quality to uphold and it is not passable. But this is probably one of the problems with working with various scanlators groups, the quality is not always going to be similar between one another but I think they should work to make that a reality especially when it eventually starts to monetise since as of now everything is free to read without limitations.

Now onto my thoughts on two series, I read over twenty titles of the platform but I wanted to talk about these two a little. These series all meet a criteria that I set which is that they are exclusive titles of the platform and are originals, not adaptations of novels and the likes. I

The All-Devouring Whale

A rare case where the lettering seems decent. 

This was quite fun to read. It is a series geared to be using the Japanese term, a shounen series. I thought it rather cool that it used a common xuanhuan (Chinese fantasy) setting but made the fighting and cultivation be centred around creatures that cultivators make contracts with and groom for battles. The cultivators and their sects all fight through their creatures and as they level up they become more connected to their creatures, to the level of taking damage whenever they are hurt. There are a lot of different creatures, so there is a classification system that includes ranks, class and types, so things are quite well put together even if the way the author inserts explanation is quite convenient...

Overall, i believe it is a lot better than most cheap cultivation comics out there because of its creature grooming aspect. In addition, the amount of monsters types and the abilities they can hold makes things a lot more varied when it comes to fight. One of the problems, however for is that the art is not really that good especially when it comes to fight as it just seems to not be able to showcase rapid movements in fights, so it feels stiff and fails to draw out any excitement from me. So, as a result it lacks in the hot blooded department since it does not have the emotional punch and its art in fights is a bit lacking in the exciting department. But overall, it is a fun series but the story is not good, and the characters are bland but I like some of the comedy and there is a bit of personal bias here since I enjoy the creatures' ideas. It is okay work overall.

Tonight Menu: Magical Beasts!

Next, it is also a shounen manga using the Japanese term to describe it. Maybe I should use Shaonian, the Chinese term to describe it actually. Magical Beast is a gourmet story with the usual xuanhuan setting. It has a more lets say more family friendly art style that is quite nice. In this story, the main character is a strong cultivator that seeks to taste the best dishes but he thinks that he is at the peak of the gourmet world and nothing satisfies him anymore until he finds a little demon cook that can cook ancient dishes using magical beasts as ingredients. Now the title makes perfect sense, so he captures the little demon and makes him his personal cook as he hunts down Magical Beasts for him to prepare for him.

The creatures are all based on creatures described in the collection of Classic of Mountains and Seas which is quite neat actually. It is quite a simple and quite silly series that I also found reasonably enjoyable to read. It does develop a story that links the series, but it is quite straightforward and it does not change what the series is about, its main focus is still the food even if there are decent fights and action moments in between the silly moments and the eating. It is an enjoyable title.

Some Final Thoughts - 

In the end, the platform is still under construction. Their close ties with scanlators is an interesting way, in the short term it helps it build a wider base of titles more quickly. The downside is the varied quality which does show itself even if I assume they have or at least should have a quality check and assurance person. If they do have one, then it does seem it is not foolproof if some typos and bad cleaning can make its way in some titles. In regards to technical or simple issues such as the lettering, I am sure those will be fixed in due time. It seems to hold promise, Bilibili Comics is the third biggest competitor in China's massive webcomic market, so of course, it has a decent selection to pick from for its English version. Its English version at the moment does not have much yet, but in the little it has so far, it does have a good variety of genres and styles.

I do realise that the two series I picked are of similar genre even if they are a bit different in style. Things just ended up that way, I could have picked other stuff but I felt like talking about those two... maybe another time I can talk about some other series on the platform.

The Rise of Web Comics

Webtoons or webcomics have become very popular in the last few years, the most notable are the series coming from South Korea where webcomics was popularised first. It has spread to other places such as China but the word webtoon is also often used to refer to webcomics but it is often used as a metonymy to refer specifically to Korean series. It does make sense since the Korean series were the ones that opened up this market space both in the west and in the east debatably. But Since I will be referring to non Korean series too, I will use webcomics, a more general term that can include series from all over the globe.

The strong association of webtoons with South Korean series probably helps strengthen that association of webtoon with Korean series. Naver, one the biggest webtoons publishers in South Korea called their western platform Webtoon. However, Webtoon publishes many western works as well since it allows people to submit their works and this actually gave many western artists and authors to write their stories and publish it there. I will come back to this topic later but first I hope to explore the beginnings of the webcomic market in South Korea and China.

WEBTOON / Naver

Why these two countries specifically? South Korea because it is where webcomics first emerged and the place where it expanded to the rest of the word and China for similar reasons since the explosion of its webcomic market it has grown significantly and whilst it does not have the global reach that South Korean series have, it has started to mark its territory. There is also another factor in these two countries that is significant and that's the fact that they had a market for physical comics and manga magazines in the 90s and early 2000s.

This physical market of comics and comic magazines was partially grown within these countries through the 20th century like in Japan but on a significantly smaller scale. Of course, Japanese manga expanded this market as anime series like One Piece, Conan and the likes became really popular in both countries. However, it was still not a big market especially for domestic cartoonists/comic authors.

Aspiring authors with the rise of the internet instead of taking the route of seeking a publishing house for their work, chose to publish their own work online in their own websites. This got the ball rolling and eventually Kakao with Daum webtoon and Naver emerged in South Korea. Both sought to create digital platforms to publish comics in the early 2000s, in a way these platforms would serve to give a space for these comics to garner readers which printed manhwa magazines had been losing. These early versions of webcomic resembled more standard manhwa or comic panelling and style but it was the first step into the digital age as stable internet became increasingly available for the average consumer. The monetisation methods were still all over the place and it varied depending on the platform but as time went on companies like Kakao and Naver would adjust as they were threading relatively new ground.

These new platforms found an audience in Korea partially because of their accessibility and gradually as technology advanced more features were added such as social media interlinks and the likes. It took more and more of physical manhwa media which meant manhwa magazines and publishing houses saw great decline. but the market for webcomic itself was still not large but it was growing and it was at this point in time that one little technological leap changed everything.

The rise of Smartphones in the late 2000s and the leap in broadband cellular network to 3G and subsequently 4g meant access to the internet on the move was better than ever before. Paired with the utility of smartphones that made it so phones were no longer just phones but actually a little computer that could fit one's pocket and could use various apps, play games and so on. Phones became little mobile entertainment machines and for the webcomic market this was the chance it needed to break into an audience that was looking for things to entertain them whenever they were on a bus or train to work and back for example. of consumers when it comes to entertainment nowadays. In part this was helped by ‘snack culture’ that emerged which refers to the consumption of media in short time rather than long or deep consumption, in sense the popularity of Tik Tok, Instagram nowadays are a good example of the expansion of snack culture.

Webcomics were already on the rise but tablets and smartphones opened a whole new path for them and the growing popularity of vertical reading with readers prior to tablets and smartphones became standard after webcomics migrated to the mobile apps version of the digital platforms such as Daum and Naver. This was important because it made webcomics much simpler and therefore faster to read because panels were more spread and spaced out than in normal comics and this helped mobile readers' consumption. This was the beginning of an explosion of popularity of webcomics in Korea that took the market to massive heights.

This meteoric rise of webcomics in Korea happened in a sense because of the technological developments but that alone does not explain it because the content is also important. In that regard Webcomic stood out from the past manhwa, its format was easy on the eyes and it stands out from manhwa that were tagged sometimes of inferior copies of Japanese works because of their resemblance to Manga's style. It also had a lot more variety than Manhwa to begin. Another part of this was the apps are clean and easy to use and chapters flow rapidly due to the vertical format, in addition there is the ingrained communal aspect in these platforms, they actively encourage readers interaction after every chapter and that is a way that the readers can have a direct exchange with the author which gives a way for readers to feel directly involved in the series.

The story in China is very similar to South Korea with a similar time frame as well. China is a market with a lot of potential due to the sheer amount of consumers. The take off of Webcomics is a bit more recent in China and it kind of mirrors the rise of Kuaikan. Kuaikan began in 2014 and it has since then became the biggest platform in China, beating other competitors like AC.QQ, U17 and Bilibili Comics and many others.

A physical comics magazine market existed in China with magazines like Manyou and Manhua Show but like in Korea it was not too big and it struggled to expand. Like Korea as well, the spread of the internet across China gave way for platforms like Dongmanzhijia and then Youyaoqi in the 2000s. These made success with original webcomics most notably Youyaoqi. The success of these comic platforms and the greater expansion of the internet and the introduction of smartphones in the 2010s in China meant new names came into the party such as huge corporation Tencent, with AC.QQ or Tencent Animation and Comics. Tencent used its full power to not only bring Japanese comics to its side but also korean webtoons and it brought over a 'wait and get it free' monetisation model from Korea and of course, it's bigger size meant it could court domestic authors from the smaller Youyaoqi. This is probably the biggest difference from Korea when it comes to the Chinese webcomic market, Japanese comics held and still hold a lot of popularity but they were widely read digitally through pirated platforms and Tencent and other platforms opened up legal ways to read these foreign popular series.

 

Manhua Show - A magazine with Original Chinese works influenced by Japanese works

Kuaikan came into the game later than AC.QQ but its approach was more similar to the Korean companies when it came to creating a platform that was aimed at mobile phones. It had a streamline interface and the community aspect similar to Korean apps. it also focused more on domestic works, at first it had a much larger female user base but that gradually evened out as it invested more and more upcoming domestic cartoonists and exclusivity contracts. So it reaped and sowed a great deal of promising domestic cartoonists and it grew to hold the best of the best when it came to domestic works exclusively. These exclusivity contracts with cartoonist or comic studios is the great source of fierce competition between different competitors companies in the webcomic business, Kuaikan ranks first in this of course with a 53% rate which is more than twice that of the second place Tencent. Gradually, the comic fans that read Japanese works had begun to read domestic ones as well and overall the consumer base of webcomics increased a lot in recent years in China.

Kuaikan - literally Quickly Read

Bilibili comics came much later in 2018 but it did not build its own platform, instead it bought out Netease comic division that was created in 2015. Netease was a medium sized platform with a lot of japanese works from a lot of different publishers but it also had many domestic works. It was brought out by Bilibili and it was expanded its catalog of works and now it competes with Kuaikan and Tencent for exclusivity contracts with promising and well known domestic cartoonists.

Why is this rise of webcomics from Korea and China relevant? The biggest relevance is its competition with Japanese comics and of course anime. The maturation of the webcomic market has been fast and these companies have begun to move to broaden their works into other multimedia projects like TV series, animation, games and so on. Korean webcomics have been adapted into drama, both for their own market but also sometimes for netflix like Sweet Home. South Korea has an audience for animation but it's not as prominent as in Japan, and its anime industry which is prominent works mainly in the backstages of production from Japan and the west. However, the recent animation for Tower of God, God of High School and Noblesse made things a lot more interesting. Naver/Webtoon was a producer alongside other Japanese companies. Naver becoming interested in seeing their shows animated especially as anime becomes bigger for western audiences is not a surprise, the really interesting aspect was the interest in the Japanese side.

Webcomics have actually grown significantly in Japan, Naver entered the market with Line, a manga reading app for mobile phones that included a lot of Japanese works but also many of the popular Korean works like the ones I just cited. Line became the most popular comic application in Japan, the biggest comic market in the world. But Line lost that title to Piccoma, an application that started in 2016. Piccoma was Kakao entry into the Japanese market and whilst at first things were slow as it leaned more on Japanese works to begin in, when it began to bring its most popular webcomics from Korea together with its 'free if you wait model' it spiked in sales to absurd levels. A notable title was Solo Levelling which became the most popular series in the app. A large part of this was that there was an increasing popularity of digital manga reading in Japan but they still had the standard comic style that felt a bit more awkward to read in mobile phones and tablets. The webcomics from Korea and China brought over in Piccoma had the scrolling style which paired with the app clean interface and monetisation scheme that favoured quick reading that was perfect for the 'snack culture'. Hence, Piccoma now sees its sales match big Japanese publishers and it has begun attracting Japanese authors to publish webcomic in its platform rather than the still large print manga industry. In addition, it has also made other publishers like Kadokawa to try and make vertical reading versions of their manga. In a sense, the old traditional monochrome manga industry in Japan has found itself maybe under competition with webcomics but there is still a space for monochrome webcomic in the standard Japanese style and that is shown by the success of Jump+, a digital platform spinoff from the most popular manga magazine in Japan. It publishes many titles and it has given rise to big titles like Kaijuu 8 recently, but unlike Piccoma, it still focuses on the sale of physical volume releases of its series.

The rising popularity of webcomics from Korea in Japan will mean more anime adaptations of Korean works will be coming in the future. Funnily enough these series are completely localised with the name of characters and setting changing to Japan if necessary. China has, however, begun to adapt its own work into anime. After all, China is a huge market for anime. Hence, the Chinese companies Kuaikan, Tencent and Bilibili whilst they at first co produced stuff with Japanese like 'The Outcast' a big Tencent title, it has backed away from that and turned inward with its own studios handling the animation production nowadays. I doubt there will be a turn away to Japan again, so we will be seeing the best chinese comic animated as Chinese production. Do not be surprised to see webcomics like Solo Levelling, Retry get games, live action and animation in the future.

Some interestings links -

.https://barnettcenter.osu.edu/sites/default/files/2019-08/webtoon_as_a_new_korean_wave.pdf

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305119880174

https://doi.org/10.2991/assehr.k.201215.523

https://news.yahoo.co.jp/special/manga-changing/