The Swordcerers: Origins of my Personal Manga!
August 6, 2010 by Toonleap
Filed under Editorial, Manga, The Swordcerers, featured
12 years ago, I was younger…Single, with no worries at all and lots of free time. It was also a time when I drew a lot of manga. That´s right…Manga! I was very enthusiastic about the idea of doing my own manga, that I figured out this silly story about a warrior in a quest and guided by a goddess in a headband. The name of that manga?…The Swordcerers! I thought of that name by combining two of my favorite genre: Swords and Sorcery, hence the title word of my personal manga!
This was an experiment to see how difficult it was to draw a manga…and certainly, it is not an easy task. I have the whole idea in my mind and I want to continue and finish this story…someday!
I wanted to share with my readers some of the highlights of this personal project I thought about, 12 years ago! I abandoned the idea because my whole portfolio was stolen with my laptop…Fortunately, I managed to recover some of the sketches and the first chapter of the story I draw many years ago. Here is one of the main characters…An Elf!
I still need to think her name. I thought of several…Faye, Amber…You could help me here!
Black and White Sketch!
Final Drawing!…Do you like her? I think She is cute…. 
…But She will not appear until chapter 2!
I abandoned the pencil and not sure how is my drawing style now. Certainly, I need to improve my drawing skills…Lots of things! However, the experience of doing the things you love has no price and I had fun doing this project. You can check out the first chapter here!
Loading ...If you like this manga, I might consider the idea of drawing the next chapters as a weekly project and add it to Cartoon Leap. After all, I thought about using this site as a platform to launch it at first but it ended up as an anime blog! Please feel free to comment and share your opinions. 12 years ago, this was just an experiment…Today, this could be something fun!…. 
Manga promotes U.S.- Japan Military Alliance!
Manga can be a powerful “weapon” to promote several things…The US Military Forces noticed that by the way…
The US military is to use manga-style comics to teach Japanese children about the two countries’ security alliance. Four comics featuring a Japanese girl and a visiting US boy will be posted online, each exploring how US and Japanese troops work together.
A US spokesman said they were intended as a light-hearted explanation of the history of the alliance. The comics, marking 50 years of the security pact, come amid strained ties over US bases in Okinawa.
The first Japanese-language manga comic, entitled Our Alliance – A Lasting Partnership, will be posted online on Wednesday.
In it the young girl, Arai Anzu – which sounds like alliance when pronounced by a Japanese person – asks the boy, Usa-kun – a play on USA – why he is protecting her house.
“Because we have an alliance,” he says. “We are ‘Important Friends’.”
“It’s good to have a friend you can rely on to go with you,” the little girl concludes.
Major Neal Fisher, deputy director of the US forces’ public affairs office in Japan, said the manga were intended as a “light-hearted approach to telling the story of the alliance through the eyes of two young people who are learning why the US military are in Japan”.
The manga format was chosen because it was “a very commonly accepted format of media in Japan – it is read as much if not more than newspapers”, he added.
Some paper copies of the comics would also be available at bases, he said.
Japan hosts some 47,000 US troops in return for security guarantees from the US, under a security pact agreed in 1960. More than half of these troops are based on the southern island of Okinawa.
Plans to relocate the Futenma airbase from southern to northern Okinawa have caused outrage amongst residents who want the base moved off the island completely.
The row toppled Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, after he was forced to renege on a pledge to re-evaluate the base relocation deal.
Source: Our Alliance Webpage, US Force Japan, Maritan Nikki, BBC via MAL News
In a curious note, Hirai Yukio (“Magical Marine Pixel Maritan”) is the main author of this manga. I am really interested to see the art of this manga.
