Saturday, December 25, 2010

One Piece

The author of the famous anime "One Piece" is earning more than two billion yen (USD 20 million) annually according to a renowned weekly magazine just published in Japan. The author Eiichiro Oda, a former dropout from a university, is said to have handed out his autographs saying "I will become a celebrity" from the days when he was not famous at all. He has been licensing his work in US, UK, Canada, Australia, NZ etc.

When I was little, every kid liked manga and anime, and our life was filled with characters from manga and anime. A friend and I used to draw manga and publish them within our circle of friends. However, nobody imagined a manga author would license his copyright in foreign countries because anime and manga were considered as too Japanese to be understood by foreign people.

Today, thanks to the globalization, I think the quality of manga and anime has become more sophisticated and easier to be accepted among people from other cultures than they used to be. But still I like them as they used to be... coarse and excessively sentimental for kids...




2 comments:

  1. I'm sure when he was young, he was looked down by most people being a drop out and all. Glad he risked it and got the success he deserved. Not all people get lucky though. "But still I like them as they used to be... coarse and excessively sentimental for kids..." I wish I knew of this feeling. Sadly, manga came into my world when I was in my last year of college. Still, it opened my eyes to a whole new definition of "living art" because seriously, you can't deny that the images in a manga comes alive. Haha, that's my imagination talking.

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  2. Yeah, I think most of the manga authors in Japan end up with nothing even if they devote all themselves to drawing manga... When I was little, I used to visit my favorite authors' houses without appointments and asked for their autographs. I really admired them those days. They were all nice and sometimes taught me how to draw manga at their offices. Those were the days... If a kid did such a thing today, he would be reported to the police as a stalker!

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