FAT NOVA retweetledi
I lay down and thought deeply, and eventually made a decision.
For the future of global manga—and for the future of Korean and Japanese manga—I decided to share my ideas and thoughts I have developed over the years, without asking for anything in return.
Someone has to love those who draw manga.
When I think about it myself, I believe I am a mangaka who has had an unusually wide range of experiences in this industry.
And I have spent a long time thinking about the future of manga around the world.
So I decided not to keep my ideas to myself, but to share them openly.
After that, I met many people to pass these ideas along.
I met people from Saudi Arabia, the United States, South Korea, and JICA.
And wow, I reached out to many countries.
I even met people I cannot speak about yet.
Of course, not everyone listened to me, accepted what I said, or responded positively.
But that didn’t matter.
I had decided to keep trying for a while.
I met many people and wrote a great number of emails.
I worked together with my friend Steve.
Because of these efforts, my main work—drawing manga, which requires intense focus—was significantly delayed.
I can’t continue like this much longer, but I wanted to bring these efforts to some kind of conclusion.
Not long ago, I met an extraordinary individual, and we spoke for 12 hours.
I believe this person is also someone making tremendous efforts for the manga industry.
To maintain my concentration during the discussion, I deliberately ate nothing and fasted the entire day.
Up until 30 minutes before the meeting, I was suffering from diarrhea. (No kidding!)
That was because I had already been in discussions the day before, and before that, I had spent two days preparing with Steve.
Until then, I had also been continuously working on my manga.
Will these efforts of mine have meaning?
Maybe Yes, maybe No.
But that is exactly why we call it a “dream.”
Dreamers and their dreams are certainly beautiful, but most of them fail.
That is what we call a dream.
And that is why so precious and we love them wholeheartedly.
Even if it has no meaning, we still strive.
Even if it never comes true, we keep moving forward.
That is what LOVE is.
And what I love most is drawing my manga.
The most precious people to me are my readers.
The ones I am most grateful to are my fans.
And those I rely on the most are the publishers who give me work.
And now I start on my deadlines.
From last Christmas until the end of this month, when the cherry blossoms begin to bloom here in Japan,
I believe I have spent about three months striving intensely for the future of global manga.
Now, it is time for me to return my full focus to creating manga.
As for the Morocco project, this is as far as I can go for now.
It is time for me to return to the work that humans have done for 50,000 years—or even earlier:
to draw, like those who once painted on the empty walls of caves.
Creation is not something every human does.
But it is one of the most human things we can do. 2/5
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