The Three Central Questions A Good Story Should Answer
It’s long been understood that all good stories have a central question which binds them together, and depending on the story, this can be many things,...
The Four Archetypes Characters Go Through in Most Stories
I came across this video today, and I have to say I find the idea of the character shifting between archetypal roles as they go through their...
Million Tag
This is interesting. In 2021, Shonen JUMP did a reality TV show in Japan which was a contest where they paired aspiring and talented manga artists with...
Man vs. Duty – The Eastern Conflict
In 335 BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle in his book Poetics wrote that drama was based around four central conflicts: Man vs. Man Man vs. Self Man...
January 21, 2023
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The Troubled Soul Plot – The Manga Gold Standard?
There is no one shonen plot to rule them all, but there is a plot that has basically become a “gold standard” for shonen manga targeted at...
November 22, 2022
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Why “Gap Moe” is the Japanese Term All Manga Creators Need to Know
The term “gap moe” is a hybrid English-Japanese term which uses the English word “gap” (the space between two objects) and the Japanese word “moe” (萌え, pronounced...
Are All Popular Shonen Jump Heroes Trickster Archetypes?
There are a number of archetypes that pop up again and again in myths, legends, and fiction, and one of these is the Trickster character. This is...
KiShoTenKetsu in Manga Revisited
Recently I read The Shonen Jump Guide to Making Manga, and while the book itself was underwhelming for what it claimed to be, I did find a...
October 25, 2022
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Review – The Shonen JUMP Guide to Making Manga
The other day I was poking around Amazon, and to my surprise discovered that VIZ had just dropped The Shonen JUMP Guide to Making Manga. This is...
The Importance of Dead Simple Goals in Manga
One of the things that the top selling manga have in common is that their lead characters are almost all working towards some overall arching goal. Accomplishing...