Welcome :D

Let me show you some of my 4koma (about my life with cats).
Nao-p is my nick name my friend Mami Tachibana gave me. And I call her Mami-p. Of course it comes from Wedding Peach "Momo-p". No one calls me by the name except for her, but I love the 4 koma cartoon "Go Go Momo-pi (Gan-bare Momo-p)"(In the paperbacks) so I use it. :)
Oh, I'm a manga artist Nao Yazawa, and author of Wedding Peach, by the way. :)

These "comic strips" come from my 4-koma blog (in Japanese). You can see all of them in original here. If you have a request which 4koma will be next, tell me. :D
http://yazawanao.blog97.fc2.com/
Other Japanese blog

2014/10/18

If I keep my cats inside?

...but now, I agreed to adopt 2 cats from a local shelter - they want me keep cats inside. 

I asked my vet (Moko's vet) I was thinking to have one or 2 kittens, so if he had any idea. Then he gave me a phone number, it's a lady's from the local cat's shelter. (These shelters don't allow you to adopt cats/dogs if you were single, so I hesitated to contact them...)

The lady from the shelter asked me if I could take cats, although they were not kittens. (They were not in the shelter, too) They were stray cats, the guys from animal shelter caught them  for spay surgeries. She said if I didn't take them, she had to let them go - and she was worried that they might not thorough the winter.  

She said she let me borrow her cage for the cats, means - they are so wild enough I need a cage to keep them my home... ? Of course I won't let them out, they would go straight back home once they get free. I have to keep them inside whatever my thought is - actually, I still think it would be nice for cats being free, run field, hunt little creatures, have fights sometimes - even it makes their life short. 

I'll keep them inside, anyway. I just hope they'll get used to the new home soon.  (I've not seem them yet, so I have no idea if they are big and strong or not. I don't now when they come to me, too. Maybe soon. )

2014/10/15

Keeping cats inside.


Since Mi-ke had hardly become friendly(still she comes to my place and eats some food), I'm, thinking about animal shelters. If I take someone, it should be now. Because I have no plan to go to abroad so far, I can stay home until new one get used to the new place.

 But the condition says you need to keep cats from the shelter inside the house. And...what if it makes Mi-ke keep away? What if I caught her after I adopted someone? Mmm-!

2014/10/12

Printing Doujinshi in West

...is complicated!

*Aww, not "past" but "paste"!! ...never mind!
The book was printed very nicely. but...



Related articles

Print shops in Europe

Typesetting of Moon&Blood German edition.

2014/10/05

When do you start reading manga?

I had 3 things to do during my Europe Tour this summer.

One: Having 4 days intensive lessons at Toulouse Manga
Two: Having a meeting with Saeko in Paris for Kaigai Manga Festa.
Three: Attending a convention in Austria. (AniNite)

I've had manga-workshop sometimes, at museums, conventions, high schools etc. But it was the first time I had intense lessons at Manga School in overseas. 4 days, from morning to evening... I had time to know my students and talk with them.   
C-chan, the school director think manga means panel work (manga-style illustration is not manga. I agree with her) So we put "making storyboard" in the program. The time was too short to learn storyboard, the concept is very Japanese, it's very difficult subject. but C-chan wanted student learn the idea of Manga Composing and we thought listening what the artist try to show with composing was good, even the student couldn't understand everything,

After a short lecture, I asked students to make 2 spread pages storyboard based on a scenario I wrote. (I used some part from my work Moon and Blood) The students nodded during the lecture, they understood what I was talking, but still, when they compose the storyboard, the storyboard was not like manga, something between comic/BD and Manga.

In the students panel-works, the characters were still, something flat, they didn't have manga-dynamism. The (imaginary) camera didn't move as well.

If you ask me "Can Japanese students compose a storyboard with dynamism, even if they are beginners ?" - the answer is "No, they can't." Still, the kind of clumsiness is something different from Japanese one.

During the classes, I asked to students when they started to reading manga. The answer was around 12, rather late than I thought. I knew they watched anime since they were little kids, but not manga. Why? Someone explained because there were not so many translated manga for kids, the main stream was for teens, that's the reason.
The students

I said "we Japanese start to reading manga at a very young age, so Japanese learn manga grammar(manga rule, in other word. Knowing how to read manga is the first step knowing how manga should be composed) without knowing. In that point, you got a late start than Japanese, this might be a huge disadvantage. You need to learn harder than Japanese." (hahaha, what do you think you are? - a teacher! )

After back to Japan - I read a story on twitter, it was about some manga expressions were rejected by an editor because the reader (kids) can't understand the style. WHAT? Japanese kids can't understand manga expression??

I've drawn manga for little kids at some magazines such as "Korokoro Comic" "PyonPyon", and my editor asked change some words because he thought it was too difficult for kids, but I've never asked to change the manga expressions. It was ages ago, (nearly 20 years) so the situation has been changed?

Personally, I think you don't need to change both expressions and words, because readers learn from new things. It's ok as long as the whole manga was fun.
BTW, this is Wedding Peach anime-manga which was on a magazine for kids from Shogakukan. This magazine is for preschool children. They don't know how to read manga yet, so it has the number in every panel. (this image hasn't because I put off the number cell when I scanned the image) you know, the first panel has (1), the second does (2)...

I regret that I didn't ask student if kids had chance to read manga belonging to elder brother/sister or friends. I'll do next time. 

2014/10/02

Sparkling Eye step-by-step Tutorial

When I posted a shojo style drawing on Manga Bangaichi , the comment "beautiful eyes!" amused me. It reminds me the drawing I was asked for a kind of "How to draw syojyo manga" book. The editor said "the eyes should be SPARKLING". I thought it's funny, I'd never thought "sparkling" is important.



But my experience keeps telling me that "Sparkling eye idea" is important for people who draw shojyo style manga in West. And again, this time. So I just drew and recorded it.

This is a simple way to draw manga-style eye.

BTW, The Isolated Zone vol.5 had joined to free manga line-up today! It's end on 6th Oct.
 真空地帯 The Isolated Zone Japanese edition vol.1 & vol.2+ vol.6  These titles is free now.  Kindle direct publishing. (The link goes to Amazon.com) Till 2nd Oct.
  

2014/10/01

Back home and...

Back home and realized 
The AniNite  T shirts of AniNite 2014 has the mascots on it (front), and they are... Wedding Peach!

And it has VIP on the back! Wow, I was a VIP!?
My lost luggage came home on the next day. The day I went back, I got a phone call from Lufthansa Japan and they sent it to my home. 

The luggage seemed to be treated very hard.
The bath salts I bout in Toulouse. It was very hard and I scooped out with a slapstick spoon to use it. But it came back in this shape, crushed completely. Must be shaken very hard. and little hotel soap and a mug was broken...and the little broken pieces was all over inside of luggage. :( 
There is a cup-sake inside of the mug, with newspapers. It was safe, thankfully!
(I gargle with it, it's good for your throat.) 
My absence was more than 15 days, but Mi-ke comes to me on the day I was back home. Guys who live downstairs feed her, so she isn't hungry. She left some food recently... :(

Her leftover is cleansed by a crow.

By the way... 真空地帯 The Isolated Zone Japanese edition vol.1 & vol.2+ vol.6  These titles is free now.  Kindle direct publishing. (The link goes to Amazon.com)