I am a long-time manga teacher and a pop-culture researcher, as well as a comic illustrator and a Youtuber, presenting under the "Mistiqarts" pseudonym. Since manga was something that inspired me early on to dedicate my life to the art style and pop culture, I was constantly looking for new ways to bring this lifestyle and art to other people interested in drawing manga.
I wrote...
Manga Crash Course Fantasy: How to Draw Anime and Manga, Step by Step
This book is an intermediate-level tutorial book on how to draw manga, but with a spin on creating your own fantasy stories, worlds and characters. Guided by a decade of experience from my own manga classroom, I managed to present all the most effective shortcuts to someone who wants to make their own stories, and even inserted games to make the process fun!
This book features all the basic-level lessons, so even if you never drew anything in your life, you can start drawing manga today.
Ayami Kojima has held my heart for as long as I was an artist. Her visual style is something anyone can recognize, and the aftershock of knowing that this artist defined an entire video game industry aesthetic made me love her work even more. I managed to find only pieces of this book online until I was able to finally afford this super rare book filled with her hyper-detailed oil paintings.
Speaking of video-game and anime industry pioneers, it would be a complete miss not to mention Yoshitaka Amano, a man whose personal style marked the entire legendary Final Fantasy franchise, after which I was delighted to learn that he also did the original illustrations of my all-time favorite anime "Vampire Hunter D". His imaginative dynamic visuals are as equally beautiful as they are simple, and yet he keeps shocking with his ability to perfectly fuse traditional imagery with sci-fi buildings and details.
A team of four female artists who have redefined the shoujo genre, and created one of the most iconic anime and manga aesthetics to date has been one of my original influences as a young girl. Big eyes, watercolor art, glittery effects, cute and gorgeous characters as well as adorable mascots were the inspiration for the foundations of my art style today.
Nothing will create an impact on my life's work as the original transformation scene from Sailor Moon. This scene inspired me to pursue my fashion schooling, and the pages of this art book are pure inspiration. Watching traditionally drawn dresses and beautiful characters always motivated me to push my creative boundaries and strive for perfection. Revisiting the ways of creating magical light effects and textures by using only watercolors and ink is crucial for any artist, especially one wanting to connect with manga.
This is an art book that showcases the masterful craft of an artist who knows how to weave souls into their characters and worlds. Her titles made me laugh, cry, jump up from my seat, and the characters and concepts in the pages of this book make me re-live these moments again and again. She uses a very unusual gouache technique, unlike any other manga artist I know of. The precision and determination in every stroke are stunning, and a book I believe any aspiring artist should have in their library.
Original art from series creator, Hiromu Arakawa; Somewhere between science, magic and art lies Fullmetal Alchemist!
Translated faithfully from the Japanese edition, this coffee table book contains all the Fullmetal Alchemist color artwork by manga artist Hiromu Arakawa from 2001 to 2003. The Art of Fullmetal Alchemist contains over 90 pages of gorgeous painted illustrations, including all the title pages as printed in color in the Japanese magazine Shonen Gangan; Japanese tankobon (graphic novel) and promotional artwork, with source listings; portraits of the main characters; and character designs from the PS2 game Fullmetal Alchemist and the Broken Angel.
My book recommendations reflect an abiding passion for Japanese literature, which has unquestionably influenced my own writing. My latest literary interest involves Japanese poetry—I’ve recently started a project that combines haiku and prose narration to describe my experiences as a part-time resident in a 1300-year-old Japanese hot spring town that Bashō helped make famous in The Narrow Road to the Deep North. But as a writer, my main focus remains novels. In late 2023 the second in a planned series of novels set in Ishikawa prefecture will be published. I currently live in Kanazawa, but have also been lucky to call Sapporo, Akita, Tokyo, and Fukui home at different times.
Emmitt’s plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of purchasing their dream home. Disappointed, he’s surprised to discover her subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo.
In his search for a meaningful life in Japan, and after quitting his job, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa’s most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English. He becomes drawn into the mysterious death of a friend of Mirai’s parents, leading him and his father-in-law to climb the mountain where the man died. There, he learns the somber truth and discovers what the future holds for him and his wife.
Packed with subtle literary allusion and closely observed nuance, Kanazawa reflects the mood of Japanese fiction in a fresh, modern incarnation.
In Kanazawa, the first literary novel in English to be set in this storied Japanese city, Emmitt's future plans collapse when his wife, Mirai, suddenly backs out of negotiations to purchase their dream home. Disappointed, he's surprised to discover Mirai's subtle pursuit of a life and career in Tokyo, a city he dislikes.
Harmony is further disrupted when Emmitt's search for a more meaningful life in Japan leads him to quit an unsatisfying job at a local university. In the fallout, he finds himself helping his mother-in-law translate Kanazawa's most famous author, Izumi Kyoka, into English.
10,000+ authors have recommended their favorite books and what they love about them.
Browse their picks for the best books about
video games,
comics,
and
the moon.
