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...
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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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...
Paul Chato’s Rules for Writing Manga?
I recently posted Paul Chato’s rules for writing sitcoms, which is an excellent discussion of the topic by someone who spent years in the trenches producing sitcoms....
September 2, 2022
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Writing Romantic Comedy Light Novels (For Men)
If you want to understand writing Romantic Comedy Light Novels (RCLN) you just need to picture a dance party in your head – a high school gym...
April 21, 2022
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Wally Wood’s 22 Panels that Always Work
American comic book artist legend Wally Wood created a set of 22 panel layouts that he used as his go-to when he needed inspiration while drawing his...
Study the Masters of Manga with Manben!
Today, one of the manga greats, Takao Saito (creator of Golgo-13) sadly passed away, and while reading the outpouring of comments about his death on social media,...
How to Write Manga: Revised Edition
I’ve just released a new revised edition of my How to Write Manga book. If anyone hasn’t had a chance to check it out, it’s a new...