Visual Yuri Dynamics: Storytelling in Japanese Girls' Love Manga
Advisor: Silva
Internship Location: San Diego State University
Onsite Mentor: Rema Shbaita, Professor of Rhetoric & Writing Studies, San Diego State University
I am a visual artist interested in how artistic style and narrative form influence audience perception. My project examines how a visual fiction short story affects the way young adults perceive non-heterosexual relationships, with a focus on which artistic and stylistic techniques are most impactful. Rather than relying on mainstream romantic tropes, this project centers on visual storytelling choices such as composition, pacing, color, and character framing to explore how emotional meaning is constructed through art.
To complete this project, I will conduct a combination of library and internet research on visual storytelling, media representation, and audience perception. I will then create an original visual fiction short story and present it to a young adult audience. Audience responses will be collected through written reflections and surveys, and analyzed for patterns in emotional interpretation and perception. The final product will include the completed visual fiction short story along with a reflective research analysis that discusses how artistic intent aligns or conflicts with audience interpretation, and what this reveals about the role of artistic style in shaping perception.
Project Blog
Week 1: Introduction, Goals, and Personal Motivations
Hello! My name is Leo Li.
I hope this introduction blog serves as a good reference for my approach to this project, the motivations I have for the choices I made, as well as the methods I employed. Throughout this project, I will be reading, analyzing, and learning the techniques used in current Yuri manga. I am aware that some may not have much exposure to Japanese manga culture so I will offer a brief overview. Yuri (百合 in Japanese kanji, meaning lily) refers to a modern genre of Japanese literature, manga, or anime that primarily focuses on exploring relationships between women. This term is not limited to any specific female relationship dynamic, but is most commonly used to describe those of romantic lesbian nature.
As an ultimately creative project, my final goal will be to produce a short manga story that would be colloquially considered Yuri, girl love, or any of its various other names. Along the way, I will also be detailing my in-depth analysis of famous and popular series with large public exposure, as well as various underexposed, unfinished or upcoming, and widely criticized works. Since I ultimately chose manga, my work will be focused on the uniqueness of this form of storytelling and the visual choices made that capture the reader's attention or emotions. A manga with a really unconvincing or boring plot can still have the most stellar visuals and have much to engage with.
My analysis process is mainly inspired by the amazing work, Experiencing Comics: An Introduction to Reading, Discussing, and Creating Comics by Rachelle Cruz. To analyze these scenes in a structured way, I use a three step process that focuses on visual storytelling. The first step is observation, where I carefully describe what is happening in the scene without interpretation. This includes panel layout, character positioning, facial expressions, and the way the reader’s eye moves across the page. The second step is analysis, where I examine why the artist may have chosen those specific visual elements and how they guide the reader’s attention or shape the pacing of the moment. This step focuses on the craft of the scene and the deliberate choices behind its construction. The final step is interpretation, where I consider how those visual techniques influence the emotional meaning of the scene and the way the relationship between the characters is understood. By separating observation, analysis, and interpretation, this method allows me to slow down the reading process and uncover how subtle visual decisions contribute to the emotional impact of the story as well as avoid bias from my own preferences.
But as I describe my project context and details, I want to address something a little heavier I do not feel I will be able to entirely capture in my final product. Thus, I am sharing it in the introduction to my blog. Why is it that I, if you know me, a student who loves physics and math, the classic STEM nerd itching at any opportunity to scientific research, am so interested in exploring the arts? And importantly for an academic focus, why this specific aspect of it? These questions are important to me, so let me take you on a more personal dive of my motivations, goals and choices made for this project.
To me, and many others, manga tells stories through more than just dialogue and plot. The way a scene is drawn often shapes how the reader understands what is happening emotionally. Panel composition, character positioning, pacing, and facial expressions all influence how a moment feels when it is read. A scene can slow down and linger on a single expression, or move quickly through a sequence of panels that creates tension or shock. Because of this, the visual structure of a manga scene plays a major role in shaping the reader’s interpretation of relationships between characters.
This project focuses on Yuri manga, a genre that explores emotionally intimate relationships between female characters. One reason I was drawn to this genre is that it often explores topics and emotions that are not always addressed directly in mainstream media. Many stories stay within familiar tropes and narrative patterns. Tropes can be meaningful and insightful in their own way, but there is also something refreshing about stories that move beyond them and explore more complicated or uncomfortable emotional territory. When a work is willing to approach taboo or emotionally complex situations, it creates space for a different kind of storytelling. As a reader, those moments feel unpredictable and genuine, and they invite a closer look at how the scene is constructed. As a human interested in other humans, I have always been drawn to this taboo.
I will first say that in no way am I romanticizing or justifying very complicated and sensitive topics such as sexual assault, incest, and many many other taboos. However, I can say that, objectively, in the media we do not often see the motivations and emotions of those who experience that which would be considered taboo. It is impossible for us as humans to not hold a single prejudice or stigmas, but often, these prejudices block us from experiencing ourselves and others fully, in our raw, genuine human form. If we cannot understand a human, who has a vastly different experience from us, we are much more likely to dismiss their reality and their feelings, leading to further prejudice and stigmatization. Much of our media does not openly and widely share the true extent and trauma and disgust felt by a victim. Much of our media does not openly and widely share the emotions, mental impact, or motivations of an abuser. Much of our media does not openly and widely share the stigma or shame of those who consider suicide, or the fault felt by their close ones.
These taboos are not shared because they are, for lack of a better word, taboo. It is not to say that there is no exposure, and I do not deny the reasons for such censorship, but it is unsettling nonetheless that a vast part of our media has been censored because these topics are hard to talk about. These topics will continue to be hard to talk about, but I believe exposure is still important. This exposure is not meant to justify anyone’s actions, it is not meant to justify emotions, it is not even meant to aid healing, it is to truly understand the world we live in.
But how do we understand these really hard topics in a way suitable, not just academically, but socially, after all they have been taboo for a reason? To tackle this challenge, I did a lot of thinking. And ultimately, I believe the best way for a creative project to broach these hard important topics is through the safer form of fictional storytelling, where nobody is physically hurt, and at any point, a reader can take a break, close the story, and process how they feel, and what they think about the work in a non-intrusive way. Additionally, taboos have historically run in the same circles. However, in the last few decades, homosexual and lesbian relationships have become increasingly less taboo in the media. I felt it would be more comfortable for a project like this to use the widening door of Yuri lesbian relationships as a safer channel to glean a glimpse into those circles.
On a much lighter note, young people, like myself, growing up in a digital age, are, as a trend, more and more attracted towards the visual. Thus I felt that the best way to connect with audiences, who include, but are not limited to young adults, is through a visual form they are familiar with, manga. I am also a young, almost adult, and similarly, I have also been more drawn towards the visual. Because of that exploration, I became interested not only in the stories themselves but also in how artists visually construct these emotionally charged moments. When reading these scenes closely, it becomes clear that the emotional impact is often built through small visual decisions. The size of a panel, the distance between characters, the direction of a gaze, or the timing between panels can completely change how a reader interprets what is happening. These details are easy to overlook when reading quickly, but when examined carefully they reveal a deliberate visual language that guides the reader’s emotional response.
Another part of this project that excites me is the process of closely analyzing the scenes themselves. When reading manga normally, it is easy to move quickly from panel to panel and focus mainly on the plot. Slowing down and examining each visual detail reveals how carefully these scenes are constructed. The placement of a character in a panel, the direction of their gaze, or the length of a silent moment can change how the reader understands what the characters are feeling. Spending time analyzing these details has made the reading experience much deeper and more rewarding.
To explore this idea further, I organized my research into three categories of works. The first includes stories that are mainstream and widely popular, since these often define the genre and establish many of the common narrative patterns and visual techniques. The second category focuses on more niche works, which often feel like a breath of fresh air because they experiment with tone, pacing, or emotional themes in ways that are less constrained by expectations. The third category examines works that are praised or criticized for being especially unconventional, particularly those that explore sensitive or taboo topics.
Every other week, I will choose 5 manga works from one of the categories and analyze 5 scenes from each, that I felt differ drastically from a visual standpoint, and employ my 3 step process. The week after, will be reserved for reading artist interviews as and cross referencing that with my analysis from the week prior. Since reading interviews is much less taxing than reading and analyzing 25 scenes for potentially hours each, I will also be practicing art basics as well as solidifying character design and plot. Since there are 3 categories I noted above, I will in total, analyze 75 scenes, spanning 6 weeks. I chose to look at so many scenes and spend so many hours on just analysis, because while many of these stories center on homosexual relationships, they often move beyond that into other complicated emotional or social themes that are rarely addressed directly in everyday media.
A large part of my motivation for seeking out these niche and unconventional works also comes from the feeling that they challenge familiar storytelling patterns. When a story moves beyond common tropes and approaches difficult topics in a new way, it creates space for more nuanced and thought provoking scenes. In addition to analyzing the visual storytelling in these works, I am also looking at interviews and commentary from the authors themselves. Understanding their motivations, influences, and creative decisions provides important context for why these stories were written and why certain visual choices were made. Combining close visual analysis with the authors’ own perspectives helps create a clearer picture of how these works are designed and what they are trying to communicate.
This project will be guided by how visual storytelling techniques in Yuri manga influence the reader’s interpretation of emotionally complex scenes. To explore this question, I analyze specific scenes using a three step method. First, I describe the visual composition of the scene, including panel layout, framing, and character positioning. Second, I analyze the artistic choices used in the scene and how they guide the reader’s attention. Finally, I interpret how these visual techniques shape the emotional meaning of the moment and the way the relationship between the characters is understood.
My hypothesis is that visual storytelling techniques play a significant role in shaping how readers interpret tension, intimacy, and emotional conflict in Yuri manga. Panel pacing, framing, and attention to subtle expressions often slow down key moments and draw the reader into the emotional state of the characters. By examining these scenes closely, I hope to show that the emotional power of these moments is not only found in the story itself but also in the careful visual decisions that bring the story to life.
Ultimately, my hope is that through my process of expression, and self-expression, I am able to incorporate these techniques to a competent enough degree, for an amateur mangaka, that my readers will be able to enjoy or gain some insight from my work. Being a shorter work, it will be fast paced, it may be uncomfortable for some, it will most likely be criticized, but I hope that does not deter too many, and perhaps it will be a breath of fresh air for those who, like me, are not looking to fill cliches.
I have delayed talking about what I have done this week for quite a bit, but the first week I felt it would only be proper to start with analyzing some of my favorite works. These are quite famous, and I am more familiar with them which makes for easier analysis as well as getting back into the genre. This week, I have read through the entirety of the following five works: Adachi to Shimamura by Moke Yuzuhara, Bloom Into You by Nio Nakatani, Citrus by Saburo Uta, Girl Friend by Morinaga Milk, and Destroy It All And Love Me In Hell by Kuwabara Tamotsu. I have included the artist name if anyone would like to check them out, because I truly do recommend them.
Thank you for reading my very long introductory blog post.
Week 2: First Popular Materials and My Initial Steps Repicking Up Art
Hello everyone,
This week I wanted to expand a bit on the work I mentioned briefly in my introduction blog. While my first post focused mainly on explaining the goals and motivations behind my project, this week I want to focus on my actual engagement with the material and beginning the analysis process.
To recap, I spent the majority of week 1 reading and analyzing five popular works that I consider both influential and representative within the genre. Specifically, I want to emphasize popular, as my proceeding weeks will include various not so popular works. These works were Citrus by Saburo Uta, Bloom Into You by Nio Nakatani, Adachi to Shimamura by Moke Yuzuhara, Girl Friends by Morinaga Milk, and Destroy It All and Love Me In Hell by Kuwabara Tamotsu. In my introduction blog I mentioned these titles, but I did not go into much detail about what I was actually analyzing while reading them.
While reading these series, I focused primarily on the visual storytelling techniques used by each artist. Using the three step method I described earlier, I examined how panel composition, pacing, facial expressions, and character positioning influenced how a scene felt emotionally. One thing that quickly became clear is that even when two scenes have very similar narrative situations, the visual choices made by the artist can dramatically change how the reader interprets the moment. This was most apparent in Citrus. It is a very fast paced and chaotic manga at the beginning and it felt intentionally made unsettling or a little fast/unrealistic. However, I came to find that many of the scenes are made in a way that intentionally rattles or destabilizes the reader to create a similar feel to the characters’ emotions. I also found that the usage of shading was most emphasized in Destroy It All And Love Me In Hell. Out of all five of the popular works I found, it used the most contrasting shades as well as a very deep understanding and usage of shading to invoke a very dynamic feeling, while not being monotonous. Often in different scenes, I found that the usage of darkness or a shadow often could hold completely different meanings and also serve different feelings in the reader’s mind.
Alongside reading the manga themselves, I also spent time looking into artist interviews and commentary. This ended up being extremely helpful because it allowed me to compare my own interpretations of certain scenes with the creators’ intentions and influences. In many cases, the interviews reinforced ideas that appeared in my analysis. Artists often spoke about wanting to emphasize subtle emotional shifts, awkward moments, or internal conflict between characters, which aligns closely with the visual techniques I was noticing in the panels themselves. Reading these interviews also helped me understand how intentional many of these decisions are. Elements that might initially appear subtle or instinctive are often the result of very deliberate artistic choices.
Another part of my work this week involved beginning some early character design sketches for my own story. Mostly this was for the purpose of getting myself back into the groove of drawing and creating scenes. I have not touched manga/illustrative drawing in quite a while and I felt many of the decisions I used to make very quickly, now require more deliberate attention, or many details such as anatomy, shading, or line weight might feel off. I also practiced fundamentals in terms of simple exercises, such as creating rows of parallel lines, or circles, or changing hatching weights. Even still, I see very much to be improved in my art and I feel I still need to regain/regrow the confidence in my lines and intuition.
Overall, I hope I was able to emphasize the extent of my engagement with the material, as well as my own journey picking up art again. By closely analyzing existing works, reading the artists’ own perspectives, and beginning my own design sketches, I feel like I am starting to better understand how visual storytelling techniques function in practice. Moving forward, I plan to continue expanding my scene analyses while also developing the characters and visual style for my own short manga.
Thank you for reading! As appreciation for reading through the blog post, I have also chosen some of my sketches to display below. To avoid further crowding this post however, I only chose the ones in which I felt I made more deliberate choices, or spent more time thinking about, rather than simply whatever came to mind at that moment. Even so, they are by no means polished but serve as more of a representation of my thoughts as a whole.
This first image, I actually decided to color (only slightly, and frankly quite messily) since I had time and it was fun for myself. Most of my manga work will not be in color but playing around with it every now and then is very fun. In particular, I wanted to capture one of the dynamics of a more aloof character paying no attention while the second character stares intensely, waiting for her to notice.
This is a random character design I just decided to spin around in my head capturing some of the angles and different facial features.
This is another sketch of two girls, where I really wanted to capture the difference in their personalities, especially in the eyes and the mouth, because I feel that the eyes and mouth typically are used to display the personalities of the characters. The one on the left feels more calm and somewhat indifferent, while the one on the right feels more intense, possessive and infatuated.
Week 3: Niche Analysis with Paneling and Manga Practice
Hello again! It is Week 3.
This week, in order to reduce workload compared to Week 1, I decided instead to only analyze 3 works from the niche category. This decision was made, primarily because of the heavy workload from the 5 works in Week 1, and in order to avoid burning out, I decided to reduce it down to 3. These three works were The Summer You Were There by Yuama, Rainbows After Storms by Ruka Kobachi, and Mietemasu yo! Aizawa-san (I See You, Aizawa-san!) by Odoroo Doroshii (Odoroo Dorothy).
However, overall it was not just the workload that was the deciding factor. In fact, that was one of the secondary reasons. The biggest one was that I had trouble identifying niche works that had an extensive author/artist interview. The author or artist interview is a very important part of my analysis in order to complete and round out my thoughts of the work. Without it, I feel a little more lost on what the artist is trying to convey. I do not believe this reduction from 5 to 3 made a significant change on what I was trying to get out of this category. Mostly, it was to see what smaller artists were doing as well as how less discovered works were pushing the frontier of the genre.
Art tends to be something that is a little more slow-moving in terms of changes. Much of the niche works I found were somewhat similar to the popular ones. They often shared similar art styles or drew inspiration from popular works. However, many artistic techniques or unique habits that the artists have, such as specific rendering or halftones, I felt were very cool and worth looking at. I don’t believe the nicheness of these works affected the quality of the work, and instead only introduced new ideas that have not yet become mainstream.
On a different note, I noticed that displaying my work in the previous blog received much appreciation and attention. As such, I will continue to share my works as I create them. This way, you all can experience my art progression, as I continue to work on improving my art.
This week, since I was mostly spending time on analysis, I was only able to complete one set of 2 panels. However these are, in my opinion, detailed and large panels. Specifically, not only was I playing around with paneling, but I was also trying to incorporate specific manga techniques, especially in shadows and texturing. Once you take a look at the art, it should become quite obvious what I mean. I did not really focus on creating a cohesive plot, and mostly threw the reader into one very short snippet of a scene, mostly because I really was only able to capture one moment in the limited 2 panels I had.
However, even without the relevant context, a careful choice of plot, nor a deliberate thought in creating the perfect dialogue, I believe it is a good demonstration of my practice in more manga-specific styles. Also this was quite quickly done again. Even I will say, I did not plan the anatomy so I have not spent a huge amount of time ensuring everything is correct. However, a lot of this is stylistic intuition and often manga does not have true human anatomy anyways. Without further ado, here is my panel below!
I apologize if the quality has been messed up by the automatic compression. That makes it quite hard to see the intricacies of the style. I have tried my best to enlarge the image for viewing. However, it is not perfect, so I will provide some guidance. Hopefully allowing you to be able to notice the details
Firstly, and probably my favorite detail, the halftones and shadows used are actually dotted. The shadows can be seen especially lightly on the skin, the clothing, the neck, the face and parts of the hair, especially towards the bottom behind the neck. The hair itself also uses a different, dotted halftone that is quite similar to the shadow but is more uniform. This is mainly used to color the hair rather than for shadowing purposes. The crosshatching of the background shadow is still quite visible despite the compression, but I thought I should also talk about it since it is also quite used in manga works. The sparkles were added mostly on a whim but I felt they work quite well here to create a dreamier feel.
The second panel contains far less overall visual detail, however I did not slack on this one either. Firstly, there are soft faded white sections in the darkness. If you look closely, you may notice that these white sections, are not just cloudy, but also have very fine small repeating scratchy grids, especially visible in the top left of the panel and the top middle. Again this was to create a somewhat dreamlike or thoughtful feel, yet also darker, more tense, as well as have a little bit of that scratchy texture from the white.
If anyone is interested in seeing these details as they are intended, please feel free to reach out. I am always willing to send any of the original files to enthusiasts.
Week 4: More Interviews and Character Designs
Welcome back. It is now Week 4.
This week I am reminded of the trend in which writers on ao3 continue their work despite really unfortunate circumstances. They go something like this: “Sorry for the long wait! I was in the hospital because I have brain tumors and I nearly died!”
Fortunately, I am not going through anything as serious as that, I am only mildly feverish. Unfortunately, it means that I did not complete as much as I would have liked. I will go through my progress anyways though. I will keep this week short
To start off, I completed reading and synthesizing the interviews for the 3 works from last week (Week 3). As a reminder, these were The Summer You Were There by Yuama, Rainbows After Storms by Ruka Kobachi, and Mietemasu yo! Aizawa-san (I See You, Aizawa-san!) by Odoroo Doroshii (Odoroo Dorothy). There is not much to say about it but I did quite enjoy them and they have again sparked new ideas and new interpretations in my mind.
This week, I also wanted to finish some character designs so that I can practice drawing them over and over again. I had wanted to complete character designs for the 2 main characters of the work this week. However, I was only able to complete 1, and began thinking about the design of the second. You may notice that since these were done within the same week, I have not had adequate time to really ingrain the character designs into my mind and intuition, so there are some clear inconsistencies in the character which will be smoothed out as I continue work on them.
These are mostly sketches, and I have chosen to include some of my guiding lines mostly because it's part of how I define the anatomy and will be useful for myself to go back and study, but it also makes it possible to see my thought process when creating the second character as well as the subtle changes I made between versions.
To keep it short I will end the blog here. I will continue working to make up lost time next week when I hopefully feel better. Here are the character designs below:
Week 5: Last Analyses and Starting Work
It is finally the 5th week!
This week marks the week that I finish the last bit of my analyses into current works. The works I looked at this week were, Shimeji Simulation by Tsukumizu, Otherside Picnic by Eita Mizuno, Happy Sugar Life by Tomiyaki Kagisora, Girls’ Last Tour by Tsukumizu, and How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull. These were honestly great reads and a big breath of fresh air from the cliches of the genre. Please check them out if you are interested, I cannot recommend them enough.
There is not too much I want to share this week besides the completion of my reading and analysis part of the project. I am still going to be reading and synthesizing author interviews next week so in my next blog post, please look forward to reading about my full thoughts as well as how I plan to incorporate and choose specific details to focus on in my own work. I will also probably be starting to create some real plot next week so look forward to that as well!
Now to get to the more fun part, to make up for last week being unable to finish my character designs, I finally settled on a design for my second character. This will be shown below. I made a fully rendered design for them, although I have not come up with a name yet.
In other news, after completing the final design of my second character, I was finally able to start creating real work surrounding the series. I thought it would be most fun and easy to start with cover art. This is a little bit of a different style compared to the style I will be going with for most panels because it is a little messier and more cover-like. You may notice that I have actual text and a title. Honestly, this means nothing because I have not settled on a name yet for the series. I simply put the first word I got from a random word generator and translated it to Japanese kanji to put on as a placeholder. However, I think it looks more complete with it there.
Without further ado, here are the 2 pieces.
Week 6: Finished Analysis, Initial Plot
6 weeks have been completed! 6 weeks to go.
It is officially halfway! This week, as promised, I have completed reading the interviews of the artists of the 5 works from last week. As a reminder, these are Shimeji Simulation by Tsukumizu, Otherside Picnic by Eita Mizuno, Happy Sugar Life by Tomiyaki Kagisora, Girls’ Last Tour by Tsukumizu, and How Do We Relationship? by Tamifull. I would encourage all to read these, although after reading the artist interviews, I would say that Otherside Picnic really caught my attention further. For those who want to read more, I would recommend looking at that first mainly because of how well I think it conveys exactly what the author wants.
Now that I have completed all my analyses, I have gotten to the point where I really need to think about what are the specific details I want to incorporate the most. In no particular priority, the ones I have decided on are, color contrast/shading, repetition/mirroring, and typography.
The reason I chose these is that after a lot of analysis, I realized that the details that were most striking to me were the large contrasts of negative space, dark shading/halftones, and the very different vibes. This really gave the scenes that incorporated these a sense of fragmentation and unease as well as a little bit of chaos and emotion, especially in emotionally charged moments. I also chose repetition and mirroring because, often we do not think about the smaller details in a work, but when we constantly see the same objects or symbols or motifs repeated over and over, or when we see a mirroring of similar poses or expressions, it really draws attention to them. This really caused me to consciously note these things and ultimately from the interviews the artist really wanted the reader to pick up on these things as well. Lastly, I chose typography because I noticed that some works felt very flat without variance in typography while others felt very alive and emphasized with it. Because the work is not animation, and is not voiced by voice actors, it is often really hard to convey emotions in voices and words, and typography is where that really makes a difference for manga works.
I have begun designing the plot for my work already and have created sketches of some scenes that I think will be more important. None of these are final and really serve only for me to get a better sense of how the plot feels so I can refine and change it. However, I think they are important to show a progression of the ideas I initially have, how I express them and what they end up looking like in the final version. Next week, I expect to draw a lot more of these sketches and to potentially start finalizing some panels or scenes.
To avoid confusion, the temporary names I have given the characters are, Nagumo Kaori for the shorter haired one, and Ito Shizu for the long haired one (in last name first name order).
Now here are some sketches, theyre mostly just for planning so
Week 8: Finished plot, final cover, and final title
Hello, It is Week 8. Week 7 was Spring Break, so I will be covering progress during that week in this post as well.
There is not much to say, but the overall plot draft has been completed. The story will be short but will center around giving the reader a fragmented view of the characters trauma as well as their emotions. I will try to refine it to be just within the range that it is believable and emotionally, somewhat understandable, but leaves much to interpretation and analysis.
Additionally, I have also finished the overall drafting sketches of the major scenes. I will share a few below to give a sense of what they look like currently.
After creating the plot, I have also decided to create one more full work for the cover. I felt the first cover I made was not as inspired by the plot, which I had not even fully created at that point. The characters I felt were very arbitrarily created as I have only had some designs for them. However, after drawing them in multiple angles as well as messing around with character details such as the eyes especially to portrait a certain personality type. I felt that creating a new one was appropriate. Personally, I was also simply somewhat unhappy with the previous cover as I had much less practice, especially of drawing the characters themselves. So, I will share that as well at the end of this post.
With the plot done, and a new cover, came a final title idea as well. I decided to call it 余韻だけが残る or roughly “Only and aftertaste remains” in English. I felt this was a nice title, as in Japanese, it is both subjectless and timeless. I also felt that it reflected the plot quite well, both emotionally and physically. The 余韻, meaning “aftertaste” has the connotation of the emotional feeling after an event as opposed to the literal definition of aftertaste, being 後味. I felt that the work itself, although more focused on literal or physical actions that the characters take, are fundamentally being driven by emotions, left from trauma we don’t fully understand. I also just liked the idea that just like a physical aftertaste which can change the flavor of a kiss, an emotional one caused by trauma can also change an interaction between the characters.
As might be clear, this new title is much more thought out compared to the original filler I had put in. In the next weeks, you should expect finalized works of the sketches to compare to, and ultimately also filling in of the transition scenes in between the major scenes.
Without further ado, here is the art from this, and last week:
Week 9: Scenes finalized and Beginning Connecting Pages
Wow, week 9 already! This week was mostly the same kind of work again. However, I have also begun stringing together some of the major scenes with more of the transition/filler panels. Since I finally have large sections of cohesive work done, I was able to start work on experimenting with typography, panelling, and much more. Since this is an art project, and fundamentally, all the work is art, I have decided to cut the words, and simply show some of my completed art.
I really focused on the contrast of dark and light as that was one of the details I wanted to focus on. Additionally, I had some fun with some new fonts, as typography was also one of the details I wanted to focus on, especially when trying to portray a certain vibe. As words can only explain so much, seeing the actual work will hopefully my descriptions make more sense.
Since there is too much work I want to show, and not enough space to show all of it without overcrowding the blog, I decided on one very specific scene to show. I had shown this scene a few weeks ago with a rough sketch of the idea. Now it has been more or less finalized, with potentially only a few tweaks to make. I felt that this would provide the most continuity, as well as showing how my thought process works, and also the notable changes I made.
There is still much that could be changed, especially with text as that is the easiest to add or remove. I also apologize if the quality makes it hard to see certain details as I had to compress the file size to be able to input it into the blog.
Week 10: Progress and Almost Finalized Work
Ten is the first double digit whole number. I'm keeping this short because it’s Week 10, so no dillydallying. Week 10 means there is pretty much one week left, can you believe it? Submission date, only a week away!
This week was more drawing as well as some plot/dialogue tweaks as I went through the work and simply felt the vibe and what flowed more naturally. I’m going to be sharing some of my more favorite pages from the over 30 currently viewable pages. This is roughly 80-90% done with the whole thing and I expect most of this last week to be completing the last bits as well as final minor adjustments.
So, speaking of “viewable pages,” Since I want everyone to be at least somewhat up to date on my progress and see what I have been up to, *I will be leaving a link below to a website where I have fully compiled much of the current progress into a scrollable/readable form. It is not finalized and does need that last bit of polishing. This is especially evident because much of the dialogue is not polished in terms of grammar. That is mostly because it is the easiest thing to change at the end all in one go. However, you can expect the final thing to look no different from the current version at a quick glance ( people tend not to notice a missing period or a comma at a glance, especially in manga). Again, I will also be leaving some of my more favorite pages below for those who don’t want to click a link. To be fully transparent, I say that they are my favorite, but I chose them because they didn't include any explicit language and are somewhat content-dense. I'm sure if you really want to see/guess which ones are my actual favorites, *you can head over to the site!
I am also obligated to include a,
CONTENT WARNING, there will be some explicit language. I have also done my best to reduce the strength of some more heavy scenes involving discussion/allusion to topics such as suicide, self-harm, nicotine, and related topics. The current version, which I have edited, I feel is more tame and suitable for 13+ teens. However, in the final work, I am still debating whether it will be necessary to include the ability to view my final work in its unedited form. *I may edit the site a few times in the coming week so look out for that by heading over there! I do not believe the edits I have made make a significant difference in understanding the work. Additionally, since I have created these unedited works anyways, I believe it does not ultimately hinder the conclusions and learning I have drawn from the creation process.
On another note, I also will be releasing a version of the work with fully translated onomatopoeias as currently, much of the typography that is not dialogue is fully in katakana, and I understand that for non-Japanese familiar readers, it may not make sense. *Again this will most likely be published on the same site. This is an example of one of the final minor adjustments I mentioned previously.
I know I promised that this would be short, but turns out I had more to say than expected. Thus, I regret to tell you, there is indeed still more to be said.
*Here is the link: https://only-an-aftertaste-remains.carrd.co/
And images:
They might feel very disconnected because they are obviously not in sequence, but I think it kind of serves as a diverse show of what the overall work looks like. I have also had to compress the files yet again, so I apologize for any poor quality/rendering issues. *If you want to see it in the better quality, I suggest heading over to the site. (This is definitely not another shameless plug: https://only-an-aftertaste-remains.carrd.co/ - For those at home who love counting, this is the 6th shameless plug. I have left a little asterisk (*) before each one, in case anyone really noticed.)
Week 11: Final Week!
This is week 11! The FINAL week! It will be short and sweet this time I promise
This week was a rush to finish everything, but also to give myself enough time to make sure i could make tweaks, adjustments as well as take a step back to make sure I wasn't tunnel visioning on anything, etc. It was very fun and I am very proud of how far the project has come in the past few weeks! Again, the manga is fully finished and uploaded to the site at: only-an-aftertaste-remains.carrd.co.
I hope you all check it out when you get the chance and let me know your thoughts!