schoolgirls looking at the moon Manga is the Japanese word for “comics”, and in English, possibly the most correct translation would be “graphic novel”, which is my preferred term. Unlike what is commonly regarded as “comics” in the West, the graphical story-telling tradition in Japan evolved along completely different lines. Due to the wide variety of subject matter, the Japanese approach to comics is much more sophisticated in its thematic manner, and also in its audience. In Japan, the “manga” market is as big as the literature market elsewhere, as “manga” is considered a legitimate form of entertainment there.

Only recently did this form of graphical entertainment reach the west, and people started telling stories in a style influenced by “manga”. The Dreaming is one of these stories — a story that can be told in other formats such as a novel or a movie, buth which I chose to tell in the form of a graphic novel. As always, it’s the potential for manga (or comics) to be a medium like any other that interests me the most.

After The Dreaming, I plan to do more works, though in a completely different genre. Exploring the possibilities of a medium is one of the pleasures of drawing graphic novels, and in the future, I intend to concentrate on doing just that, as well as continue to tell stories that are interesting and compelling.