Hey everybody, it’s been a busy week. So while I’m cooking up whatever post comes next, I think I need to share some of my bits about certain creators. I generally follow creators’ bibliography especially if readers can get an idea on their styles, personality, or ideals. But I prefer creators who are both high chances for search rates while not being so popular that there’re articles and videos talking about them. It’s why you’ll never see me post about Stan Lee or Alan Moore. Not unless there’s something very specific like my Grant Morrison posts.
It’s also why one of my most popular creator posts is Go Nagai, a mangaka so famous and influential, the English-speaking world only has a vague idea of him. Which brings me into why manga posts take longer to process than others. Then there’s Satoshi Mizukami, a mangaka who has plenty of great titles to his name… that only a few people have access to. Fortunately for me, my post is first in the SEO searches… when it’s not talking about a character from a different manga. But compared to my post about Kazuo Koike that one tends to do better. Yet it still pales in comparison to my Lupin III post I made in tribute to its creator Monkey Punch.
Which is why mangaka don’t usually end up on my posts. Most like Eiichiro Oda or the late Kentaro Miura usually put their best stuff into one series. I might consider Akira Toriyama or Naoko Takeuchi, but those two have titles so notable to a generation, I’ll get overlooked by the people who already made essays about them. Doesn’t mean I won’t cover their work, but like the Morrison posts, they’ll have to be specific subjects shared between them. That way, they have a chance of bringing users to my website… But so far I’m not finding any.
As for mangaka in general, posts about Naoki Urasawa, Junji Ito, Takehiko Inoue, Hiromu Arakawa, and Tooru Fujisawa have already been made by others. (But maybe Fujisawa can come up.) I need notable mangaka with highly decorated work but not a lot of exposure like Kouji Mori, Yukimura Makoto, Inio Asano, and Aka Akasaka.
With that in mind here’s the next obstacle, I need to read their material or at least get the best idea of it. And since Kouji Mori’s material isn’t found stateside, I have to find out about it through scans. Yes, I know this isn’t great; but when this manga isn’t available in your country, what legal thing can you do that won’t break the bank? Fortunately for me, the other mangaka have easier to access (and legally accessible) material.
So here’re the requirements for a Mangaka Creator Highlights:
Must have more than one notable manga in bibliography.
Not too many material of people reacting to the mangaka.
I must be familiar with the manga.
So yeah, not too dissimilar to Creator Highlights… that I need to actually follow. Admittedly, I jump the gun a couple of times in regards to this. Which is why I can’t just go into John Ridley despite having material from his early comics career, I need to see the entirety of his work from I Am Batman and Black Panther before forming an opinion.
So it’s gonna take some time before I cover specific manga topics, because I have a lot of reading to catch up on and I like to play Returnal. So yeah, might be a while.