My Best Friend...

Final Chapter(Ch 12) of Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magica - My Best Friend

Homura Akemi(right) and Kaname Madoka(left)

Don't forget,

Always, somewhere,

Someone is fighting for you,

—As long as you remember her,

you are not alone.

Mangaka: CLAMP

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Hello everybody!

How are you? As always I wish you are fine.

On Tuesday finally the second partial exams ended, and I was really really happy because that day there were no homework T^T , and I read the whole day and watch DEXTER. I was really, really happy.

         Anyway, today I'm going to introduce you another topic which I'd never mentioned before, well, I'd mentioned it before, but not really deep as I'm going to do in this post…      MANGAKA!!! ^-^

         When you were younger maybe you watched in TV those animes like Cardcaptor Sakura, RG Veda, Chobits; or have heard about Code Geass, xxxHoLic, Tsubasa, Kobato, Clover, X/1999, Clamp School Detectives, Magic Knight Rayearth, Tokyo Babylon, Blood-C, Wish, or The One I Love.

If any of those heard somehow familiar to you, well, those animes and mangas were created or illustrated by CLAMP.  :D

            CLAMP nowadays is a group of four Japanese Mangaka women, they're well known all around the world. Their mangas and animes are available in most of the countries and have reached a very diverse audience as they have published comics in multiple genres and themes (from childish and comedic to much more dramatic and teen-rated). OɜO

         This Mangaka group banded together in the late 1980's, and started with thirteen members, some of them were Okawa Nanase/Ageha(leader), Apapa Mokona, Nekoi Tsubaki, Igarashi Satsuki, O-Kyon, Nanao Sei, Sei Leeza, Hishika Soushi, Akiyama Tamayo, Inoue Yuzuru, Nakamori Kazue, and Oumi Shinya.

         Before they began creating works as CLAMP, some members created Doujinshi series: Captain Tsubasa and Saint Seiya. They stopped publishing those doujinshi in 1987 and started to work in the manga in which they debuted on the market, RG Veda. However, when the manga was accepted by Shinshokan's(a publishing company) Wings magazine, the group had already went down to seven, and the other members left the group in the early 90's(many of their most famous series were released in that decade), leaving the group with just four members:  Nanase(leader), Mokona, Nekoi, and Satsuki. They are the members that continues in the group until today, being them whom we know as CLAMP, whom switch roles for the work and publication each series.*.*

 

            As I've mentioned before CLAMP published comics of several genres and that had caught an also diverse public, but also, CLAMP's manga drawings are distinguished by its diverse visual style that changes according to the audience to which they're intended and are highly detailed (detailed hair, heavily stylized eyes and human figures, elaborate clothing). Another characteristic that they have in the drawings is that they frequently features one-eye characters or characters that lose their sight in one eye and then, something comes later on to supplement the loss in vision, this may be inspired from Okawa poor right-eye vision. In their stories there's the common idea of soul-mates or couples that are tied together by fate, disregard of gender or biological age. In some CLAMP mangas you may see that they just don't treat themes superficially, they do also have some hidden critics or purposes in their stories (a critic to government or to society, etc.), and that had made some of their publications to be censored by government or other organizations.  OwO

            Besides all things that have happened to CLAMP, the group continues to be successful nowadays, and the series they produced in they early years continue being a sensation to the to the audience, also some of their stories had become legends in the anime and manga otaku world. :)

I wish you had liked my post,

I wish you all to have a nice day, GBU,

Good bye, and good luck　:D　ありがとうございました！　

.

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faye, MangaUpdates Staff. "CLAMP", MANGAKA. Manga-Fu. Baka-Updates Manga, February 10th, 2011. Web. <http://www.mangaupdates.com/authors.html?id=208>.

Ggctuk and Jackisthemasterofwater. "CLAMP." CardCaptor Sakura. January 6, 2010. n. pag. Wikia. Web. 17 Oct 2011. <http://ccs.wikia.com/wiki/CLAMP>.

kestrelsempai, . "CLAMP Fan." CLAMP Fan anime & manga resource!. CLAMP Fan and Amazon.com, n/d. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://www.clampfan.com/index.html>.

Shiroi, Lee. "CLAMP." Eternally Endless White. LiveJournal, Sep. 17th, 2009. Web. 17 Oct. 2011. <http://shiroi-lee.livejournal.com/20300.html>.

Jump Comics magazine & history

HI EVERYBODY~!

                   How are you?, I wish you could be fine, because at where I live, there had been recently a lot of social and political problems.  ¬¬

         Anyway, I'm going to introduce you more about information of the most popular manga magazines and publishing companies.  OwO  The one I’m going to present you today is the most popular Shounen manga magazine and a little about its publishing company:

Cover of the first issue published at 1968

         Jump Comics, is a famous manga magazine created by Shueisha Publishing company, which is a major publisher in Japan.(eNotes.com) It has more than three million readers, and also is one of the Japanese longest-running manga magazines known until this date. This magazine has some sub-magazine, and the most known and famous is Shonen Jump magazines.(VirtualJapan.com)

         Shonen Jump was created at 1968 as a semi-weekly magazine; at 1969 it became a weekly manga anthology and changed its name to Weekly Shonen Jump, which is the name it still maintain at today. Once a month is released the magazine Monthly Shonen Jump, which contains all the manga chapters that were released at the Weekly Shonen Jump in a month.(VirtualJapan.com)

This manga anthology magazine is the one responsible of publishing some mangas that are pretty famous and well known all around the world, that maybe we watched in TV as anime when we were kids, mangas such as Dragon Ball (Toriyama Akira), City Hunter (Houjo Tsukasa), Saint Seiya (Kuruma Masamu), or Slam Dunk (Inoue Takehiko); or that we get to know them at modern time for being also popular animes, mangas as Death Note (Tsugumi Ohba and Asami Yuuko), One Piece (Oda Eiichiro), Naruto (Kishimoto Masashi), or Bleach(Kubo Tite).(MangaHere.com)

North America 100 issue cover

         In North America, SHONEN JUMP is published by Viz Media, a publishing company of Japanese entertainment, headquartered in San Francisco. It was displayed by first time to the public at magazine and bookstores at January 2003. Each Magazine is released in English just once a month as the Monthly Shonen Jump; it contains chapters of seven manga series, articles of Japanese language and culture, anime, videogames, and sometimes figurines or special collection cards.(VirtualJapan.com) The magazine is sold at the US, Canada, Mexico, and other few countries of the American Continent.

40 aniversary Japanese issue

     This Manga Magazine is one of my favorites because some of my favorite mangas are from Jump Comics; most of the manga stories of Shonen Jump are really interesting and have good drawings (there are exceptions). If you want to buy it: in the US and Canada is relatively cheap in comparison to Mexico or other countries. If you live in NL, Mx, you can find it at Sanborns' bookshop. :B

Thanks for reading, GBU, have a nice day~! :D

Cited Works:

eNotes.com. "Jump (magazine line)." eNotes: Study Smarter. eNotes.com, 2011. Web. 31 Aug 2011. <http://www.enotes.com/topic/Jump_(magazine_line)>.

VirtualJapan.com."Weekly Shonen Jump." Virtual Japan Wiki. VirtualJapan.com, 2008-2011. Web. 31 Aug 2011. <http://www.virtualjapan.com/wiki/Weekly_Shonen_Jump>.

MangaHere.com. "Hot and Classic manga published on Weekly Shonen Jump." LET'S JUMP. MangaHere.com, 2011. Web. 31 Aug 2011. <http://www.mangahere.com/topic/jump/>.

eNotes.com, . "Shueisha." eNotes: Study Smarter. eNotes.com, 2011. Web. 31 Aug 2011. <http://www.enotes.com/topic/Shueisha>.

How to Read Asian Comics

Hi everybody~! :D

Today I’m going to tell you how to read Asian comics correctly.

         You may say "Do you think I’m stupid and don't know how to read comics?" ¬¬ , but no, I don't think you might be stupid, because I guess most of the people that are reading this have at least read 1 comic in their lives. :3

         I'm writing this because Asian Comics have different ways of reading them, it doesn't mean you should know Chinese, Vietnamese, Tai, Korean, and Japanese languages. But you must know the correct way of reading them, because if not, you will not understand what are you reading, it has happened to me, and when you notice you've been reading in the wrong way, it may be bothersome. We'll be using the terminology from the first post.  
  So let's begin:

         Most of the Asian Comics are read from right to left, from up to down; just as how you read an Occidental comic, but flipped horizontally, as the picture up ⬆ show us. First what is in the boxes, then the dialogs, and sometimes it might include what some characters are thinking, or explaining their behavior, positions, and faces.

Most Japanese, Tai, and Chinese comics are read in this way, and some Korean and Vietnamese comics.

 

    But there are Asian comics that should be read as Occidental comics, most of the Manhwas are read in this way; also there are Mangas and Manhuas that can be confusing because they must be read complete vertically and then go up again from right to left, those kind of comics are not common to see, those are called "4 panel"(example: "Lucky Star", "Working!!” and some extras chapters of other comics as the "The Breaker" or "Shugo Chara!"), as the example of the picture at the left ⬅ . 

           And there might be sometimes that some Mangakas add their creativity to the comics, so it may change a little the way of reading some pages (principally in Mangas). 

          When you buy your Asian comics at the American continent and Europe, the publishing company that did translate the comic may have print it so it'll be read from left to right.

  

Well everybody, that's all for today, i wish you have understand, and that you'll read lot's of Asian comics. Probably in future I'll make articles about the most famous Manga and Manhwa publishing companies.  :P

       Good bye~, have a nice day! GBU!

The pictures were taken from Working!! manga and modified by me with PaintBrush Mac program, and from Manga for Kids: How to Read Manga

Definition of Manga, Manhwa, and Manhua(Wikipedia)

Definitions:

Manga (漫画; まんが; マンガ)is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons (sometimes also called komikku コミック). In the west, the term "Manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th century.

Manhwa  is the general Korean term for comics and print cartoons (common usage also includes animated cartoons). Outside of Korea, the term usually refers specifically to South Korean comics. The term, along with manga, is a cognate of the Chinese manhua. Manhwa were inspired by classic Asian arts, especially Chinese.

Manhua (simplified Chinese: 漫画; traditional Chinese: 漫畫) are Chinese comics originally produced in China. Possibly due to their greater degree of artistic freedom of expression and closer international ties with Japan, Hong Kong and Taiwan (Republic of China) have been the places of publication of most manhua thus far, often including Chinese translations of Japanese manga.

Information from Wikipedia®, the free encyclopedia  :D

and picture from Drawing Manga Art Tutorials :3

PD: Wikipedia is not always a reliable information resource