Manga Monday: Comiket

Hey all I’m going to cover a pretty special event that happens twice a year in Japan for this week’s Manga Monday, and I promise it’s at least semi-relevant! It’s all about Comiket, short for Comic Market!

What is Comiket about?: It’s essentially a huge freaking convention that’s held twice a year and is a huge garage sale for those aspiring independent artists of all sorts. It originally started with just Manga, but has since expanded to include animated and audio work! Some of the most famous creative groups in Japan started out as Doujin Artists, the Japanese term for Indies. I’ve mentioned this before in previous articles, but CLAMP is probably the best known here in the west.

How big is it?: I’ll just quote Wikipedia on this one, as it’s a rather impressive figure. “The first Comiket was held on December 21, 1975, with only about 32 participating circles and an estimated 600 attendees. Attendance has since swelled to over a half million people.” A later figure is also pretty impressive just regarding finding things you might find interesting. “The Comiket Catalog contains information about the buyers and sellers at Comiket, and other general event information. It is available in print and DVD-ROM format, and as of Comiket 83 is available freely online. The print version is roughly the size of an average phone book. It contains lists of all the participating circles, maps of the convention layout, maps and directions to get to and from the convention, rules for the convention, results from surveys held among Comiket participants, articles about topics relevant for dōjinshi creators, and one to two pictures (“circle cuts”) for every participating circle.”

 

Holy crap right? All of this is for those independent artists who work on their own original works or already pre-established works. This is a grey area in the law currently, but as no self respecting Mangaka would be mad at someone going through the trouble of making their work more popular they don’t ever press charges.

This is a huge “free” (as in free trade) market and is why I think the TPP is just a bunch of bullshit that greedy copyright trolls and ISPs want to pass to further their own interests. It would outright destroy this event and destroy so many possible artists futures that I find it unforgivable. So like I’ve been preaching for the last few weeks get on your governmental representatives cases on this and tell them to stop supporting greedy bastards who already take too much money from the small folks.

That’s it for this week’s Manga Monday, see you next week!

Video Game Tuesday: Licensing

This week for Video Game Tuesday I’m covering an important part of making a game! It’s all about Licensing!

What do you mean a License?: Well it’s allowing someone to use someone else’s software for your own use. For example if you own Photoshop you have a license to use it for your own purposes whatever they may be.

What does that mean in a game?: Game companies often license out their own software that they use to make games, often called a game engine. Some prominently and well known ones are Cryengine, Unreal Engine and Unity. This isn’t the only thing though that is licensed for use in games.

What else?: Here is the real big issue that’s affecting lots of people these days. It’s the music that the game has, it has a different set of copyright laws and while they are fine for personal use (read: for you to play the game); it often isn’t okay for it to be used for other than that. So if you stream or make Let’s Plays of games you need to be really careful of what you use the background music for. Grand Theft Auto V for example has a bunch of actual music in the radio stations, along with some “in-game” music as well. If you aren’t careful and you violate the license you will probably get your videos taken down. It’s frustrating for localization as well, but that’s a topic for another week.

That’s it for this week’s Video Game Tuesday!

Manga Monday: Soul CatcherS by Shinkai Hideo

This week for Manga Monday I’m covering a series I recently started reading and found to be quite good. It’s Soul CatcherS by Shinkai Hideo!

Plot Synopsis: Kamine Shuuta is a person who can see a person’s heart (literally) whether it’s angry, wounded, broken, guarded, troubled etc… and because of this he’s at his wits end, because he can’t do anything about it.

Tokisaka Hibiki is a saxophonist in the music club. Shuuta first listens to his saxophone on the terrace and wanted to ask something but Shuuta tells him to come to his performance later in the ongoing school festival. After seeing Hibiki’s performance, he see the notes of music as hands which can heal the wounded, tend the broken, break the shielded hearts: in other words “seize the soul” of a person.

After the performance Shuuta asks Hibiki if there isn’t a person to whom his sound doesn’t reach. Shuuta says although Hibiki’s sounds can seize hearts of others and move them, his own heart is guarded and is unmoved and troubled.

Plot: The plot isn’t anything super serious, and it follows the Shonen model pretty closely, but it does it in a way that makes it fun. I really do enjoy the plot, and I hope the series doesn’t get axed.

Characters: Kamine has a pretty neat ability, being able to see people’s emotions and while that makes him an interesting lead, it’s really the rest of the Concert Band that makes the series good. We’ve got a ton of characters that just make for interesting foils to Kamine and Tokisaka’s attitudes.

Art: The art is standard Shonen fare, but it does it very well, managing to make conducting a band seem exciting and interesting.

Overall: This is a great series, and I’d suggest reading the beginning chapter at the very least.

For those who like: Music, Drama, Excellent Artwork, Fantastic Cast of Characters.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Shoujo Saturday: Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso by Naoshi Arakawa [Quick Review]

This week I’m doing another Quick Review for Shoujo Saturday. It’s Shigatsu wa Kimi no Uso by Naoshi Arakawa!

Plot Synopsis: Piano prodigy Kousei Arima dominated the competition and has become famous among child musicians. After his mother, who was also his instructor, died, he had a mental breakdown while performing at a piano recital at the age of eleven. Two years later, Kousei hasn’t touched the piano and views the world in monotone, without any flair or color. He has resigned himself to living out his life with his good friends, Tsubaki and Watari, until, one day, a girl changes everything.

Plot: After reading the first chapter I am highly interested to see where this series will go, but I’m also not expecting anything great like Akatsuki no Yona‘s plot. I’ve felt the way Kousei does, in fact that’s pretty much how I’ve lived most of my life (which is really sad now that I actually put that into writing and think about it), but I’ve also felt the way he does after meeting the girl. That may be why I’m interested in this series, because that’s how my life has been for most of my life.

Art: The art is a mix of Shoujo and a little bit of Shonen, which is actually really funny because the series is printed in a Shonen serial. I personally would classify it as Shoujo, hence why I’m doing it for today.

Characters: The cast so far is only like four characters and I really only like Kousei’s childhood friend Tsubaki. The rest of the cast will need to really make good impressions for me to continue reading after the fifth chapter.

Overall: If you enjoy a story about music or depression you might enjoy this one.

For those who like: Music, Romance, Shoujo Manga.

Not for those who don’t like: Any of the above.

Shoujo Saturday: Fuuka by Kouji Seo [Major Spoilers for Suzuka]

This week for Shoujo Saturday I’m covering another work of Kouji Seo’s. It’s Fuuka the sequel to Suzuka. Spoilers after the jump.