Hey everyone, in case you haven’t been following this on my Twitter or YouTube, me and Gemini decided to team up again after Return to the Reverie to create a new manga project! However, this time it’s completely unrelated to One Piece and serves as its own original separate story!
It’s a 55-page original one-shot that we made for the 100th Tezuka Competition (a manga competition hosted by Shueisha/Jump themselves!) set in a completely original setting. Even if it isn’t related to One Piece, please consider reading it if you enjoyed Return to the Reverie, as it’s made by the same people!
READ THE CHAPTER HERE: https://medibang.com/book/oe2008271824102890016557352/view/
WATCH THE CHAPTER IN VIDEO FORMAT HERE:
Hope you enjoy it!
The Library of Ohara 
Awesome! Can’t wait to read it.
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Arthur,
I read your original manga. It was good but not quite really good. So here’s my review of it (If you don’t want a reivew, please don’t read ahead).
So, first the things that I didn’t like. The story was generic; I knew the plot the second Richard came on the page. It seemed like a mix of Fairy Tail and One Piece. Also, the art was not upto the mark. Gemini should try to insert more background into the panels. Make it feel like more is happening than the person speaking. Also, try to add more jagged and rough lines to the characters. Also, use more double page spreads to invoke awe. The dragon jumping into the air, should have used the double page spread. Also, add more details to the dragons. Also, there was not enough shading, the different objects in a panel tended to bend in with one another.
But, that’s not to say that I didn’t like anything. I liked the fact that at the end, Honda didn’t go with Richard. I also liked the fact that the protagonist is not totally unaware of the world. Like, if the manga continued and we were to have gone around the world, she would have known more than we would have.
Overall, I feel like this was the wrong chapter to begin with. You should have begun with either Honda on her own, exploring the world, not looking for someone to take her as a sidekick. She could still have met Richard before her adventures began, but it should have told to us via a flashback. OR the story should have begun with Honda in her village receiving the motivations to start adventuring. Her motivations were not very sufficient enough to me from this chapter alone.
In conclusion, this chapter was not enough of a hooker (to me) to start a series. The characters could be improved, the art could be improved and most importantly, the PLOT should have been stronger.
Thank You.
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Thanks for the feedback, but I feel you are missing the fact that this is not a chapter 1, but a self-contained story as a one-shot. As outlined by the rules of the contest, a one-shot needs to be a story that begins and ends in one chapter. Leaving the sensation that there could be more isn’t bad, but it has to be written with a very defined end in mind. So in that regard, yeah, I definitely agree it doesn’t work the best as the chapter one of a larger story, but it was never written with that in mind.
In that regard it should also be accounted that this was made for a manga award for amateurs, so unavoidably both the writing and especially the art (considering Gemini is still a teenager who only started drawing just recently) will not be up to par with professional works that you would see serialized on a magazine by actual professionals. Just try looking at the early one-shots of authors like Oda and you can see even they had stories and art that weren’t quite up to par.
Not to say that this makes any of your criticisms invalid or that this should hold me immune to any criticisms, I think you’re putting into words a lot of points I felt a bit worried about as well, but I just hope this can help put the context in which this work was created more into perspective.
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I haven’t read the full One-Shot, I am just curious – is Gemini a native Japanese speaker? Cause some parts look off. I see that you posted it in English but I’d assume you’d have to submit a Japanese version and even now there’s some issues. For example with a two person combo you’d usually have 原作 and 作画 and not 漫画. Also on page 4 the じー has the じ facing the wrong way.
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Hey, thank you for spotting the typo with the じー! Seems like a simple mistake, but in a chapter where we literally had to do thousands of visual edits, something was bound to escape us even after all the controls and check ups I gave it, for as basic as it might’ve been haha. I also ended up spotting a couple of (English) typos I had to go back and fix.
About 漫画 however, I typed that in because I recalled that some Jump series did use 漫画 to refer to the artist. To put an example, here is how Act-Age did it: https://i.imgur.com/bCpxs5Y.png. I found it odd since I thought it was 漫画 as well, but I checked one manga and it did indeed just use 漫画, so I went with it and assumed I was misremembering. However, now that you brought this up, I checked some other series and, for example, Dr. Stone has it as 作画 instead: https://i.imgur.com/7SfJSrU.png. I’ve never actually payed attention to this detail, but it’s interesting that different series use different terms for it. I’d have to assume it’s for a reason, perhaps 作画 refers to someone adapting storyboards while 漫画 refers to someone adapting a script? Or is it just different terms just for the sake of being fancy? I never paid mind to this, especially since translations would always universally translate it all as “artist/art”, but now it actually has me very curious…
Thankfully since the submission period isn’t over so I can go back and fix the pages, so thanks for the tip! And don’t worry, the translation from English to Japanese will be handled by Medibang (the tournament organizers) themselves. But I’m wondering if 漫画 really is the wrong term in this case and should be corrected…
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Interesting, act-age did indeed go with 漫画. It’s just that from all I’ve seen 作画 seemed to be the usual term, the recently axed Time Paradox Ghost Writer did as well. Also what they used in Bakuman I believe for the work and in universe (and in the story they change the format of how the two work together on their manga). Which btw, if you haven’t read it yet I would certainly recommend to you for reading material seeing as you’re venturing into the world yourself.
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Yeah, since 作画 seems to be the one most commonly used, I decided to go with that. Thankfully I was able to update the one-shot before the submission period ends.
And yes, I’ve read Bakuman, it’s a fantastic insight into how Jump and the world of manga works! It’s a beautiful mix of an insightful documentary mixed with a romanticized shonen storyline to take you through it, it was a great read
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Hey Artur!
I am a huge fan of your work. You are the sole reason why I read One Piece weekly! Something I never thought would happen before. You’ve inspired me so much, I started my own Podcast reviewing the entire series of One Piece with a friend who had never watched the show before. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hKa5OeptTE&t=275s) If it wasn’t for your detailed oriented chapter secrets, I don’t think I would have been able to start this podcast. So thank you for that! I also really enjoyed the Return to the Reveire fan comic that you wrote along with Gimini, it was so much fun to read and really allowed me to see you more as a writer then a reviewer, and I really enjoyed that side of you.
That aside, here are my random thoughts of your cool one shot:
I thought it was kind of basic. But like the good kind of basic. Like, I feel like if you ever decide to expand on this world, this would be the perfect staring point for a world building story. I got a lot of Fairy Tail vibes when the two characters were sitting in the restaurant, and Gimini’s art really reminds me of Kohei Horikoshi’s art style. And those two styles surprisingly mesh really well! I love that you criticized Honda using Richard’s experience exploring this world. That having only optimism will break you and that you need to be prepared for the hardships of the world. While a lot of manga explore it, they never outright say it to the audience, which was a nice change of pace. What else… the dragon looked really cool, the emotions on the characters are clear as day (sometimes you can’t tell what someone is thinking just by looking at their face, so good on Gimini.) I think my favorite aspect was that Honda didn’t go with Richard. I feel like this was more of her backstory, her “why she does what she does” flashback that so many One Piece character have. All the criticism that I have was that I feel like it needed more time to expand. But like you said, it was a one shot that needed to have a definitive end, so I can’t really complain about that. I only say that because I’m a little invested in the story and kind of excited to see what you do with it (if you ever decide to do anything with it). And that’s about it.
Thank you Artur, for all the hard work that you do. You have no idea what your work has done for me, and for that I will be eternally grateful. I’ll see you at the next Chapter Secrets 🙂
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Hearing this makes me very happy, thank you. I’m glad all my effort can help out others like this. Don’t really know how else to word this since I’m bad at answering when feeling flattered, but thanks for the feedback on the one-shot and hoping the best for your content!
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Hey Artur! This was very pleasant to read.
It seems you put a lot of thought into this one shot in such a way that the story could be fleshed out to last a very long time if need be. I found it to be creative and it’s certainly an interesting concept. I love Gemini’s art style, and (unless I’m imagining), I like the subtle addition of Return to Reverie’s version of Ricardo.
It felt like what the beginning of a typical Shonen manga would be, but it was also strong enough to stand on its own.
If you have the time, I’d say think of a story and see how far you can take this. You give me the perception that you’re a good storyteller. I certainly enjoyed this, and I’m quite sure I’m not the only one.
I understand entries end September 1st of 2020. Go win that contest!
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I read through it and it was solid. I think to make it competitive you would need to do more to illustrate the manga’s philosophy with actions and not just exposition. For instance the adventurer doing something specific that demonstrated his freedom at the end, most likely juxtaposed against an amusing but confining social norm set up during the beginning town scenes. Also having the antagonist be involved in some unspecified “shady” stuff to justify a brutal home invasion is a little lazy. It needs to be spelled out. It could either be something really bad, but I think it would match the theme better to have it be something criminal but kind of petty, and then have the over the top reaction be because he can’t stand someone faking stories. These things are easier said than done, of course.
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