Thank you to everyone who came to the "Kumamoto International Manga Festival" held at Tsuruya Department Store in Kumamoto from April 15th to 16th. On the 16th (Sunday), a talk show between Tsukasa Hojo and Nobuhiko Horie was held as a silent manga award ceremony event, and many fans and students participated. At the opening, a motion comic from the final episode of "City Hunter" will be specially screened to liven up the venue. From there, the talk continued while looking back at Tsukasa Hojo's past works from the perspective of a manga artist and editor, and talked about the manufacturing process.
The highlight is the making-of video, which was shot using a fixed-point camera over several days while writing this key visual. You can hear sighs from the audience at Tsukasa Hojo's careful and detailed brushstrokes. Horie also praised the footage he saw for the first time, saying, ``Mr. Hojo gets better with each pen.''
Next, a silent manga award ceremony was held. This year's ``Kumamoto International Manga Festival'' is looking for silent manga and illustrations with a smile theme, ``Let's bring smiles to Kumamoto from all over the world.'' After just two months of applications, we received 209 silent manga from 39 countries and regions and 551 illustrations from 59 countries. The winning work isYou can see from here. Award winners from Vietnam, Russia, Italy, and Indonesia came to Japan and spoke with smiles of their joy at receiving the award. The Grand Prix winner was “Cat Mela” by Xabania & Nat Linh from Vietnam. President Kuga of Tsuruya Department Store also took the stage as a presenter.
In addition, the Sojo University Award, which we received support from this time, was awarded to Mr. Da Hosoi from Italy for ``Always Next Door''.
Ryuji Tsugihara, who served as a judge, said, ``This time, they did their best to research Kumamoto and drew it with the desire to please the people of Kumamoto.Actually, that is the most important thing when drawing manga.'' That's true. I think this theme has given all the artists more strength," he commented. Fellow judge Tsukasa Hojo said, ``None of the judging I've done before was this difficult.The winning entries are just a few, but there are many people from other countries all over the world who have drawn with Kumamoto in mind.'' They were all good works filled with feelings for everyone.''
Congratulations to all the award winners! In addition, a special live-action short movie of a silent manga created especially for the Kumamoto International Manga Festival will be unveiled for the first time at the venue. This work is based on two previous award-winning works. The movie was screened in the order of motion comics and live-action movies, allowing participants to experience how silent manga can be turned into wonderful visual content by top-notch video and music creators and actors. bothThis pageIt is published at! Surprisingly, Kenshiro Kato, who appeared in "Let's Make a Smile", which became a hot topic as the brothers co-starred for the first time, appeared on stage as a surprise guest along with director Hiroshi Mashima! His older brother, Seishiro Kato, was with him, so he said, ``I was nervous, but it was reassuring.'' Her adorable facial expressions created a peaceful atmosphere at the venue.
Yuto Uchiyama, the director of another live-action film, ``Thirty and a Half Minutes,'' also appeared and said, ``Talking with facial expressions alone is in a sense experimental, and the actors were excited about filming.'' All the staff members commented, ``We feel there is potential in silent manga, which does not require words and can be spread all over the world.'' Regarding his intention in creating the live-action movie, Horie said, ``Osamu Tezuka, who wanted to make a video, drew the storyboard for the video on manuscript paper.That evolved into the manga we know today.That's why manga originally consisted of images. It goes well with Manga.Anyone in the world can draw manga with "one pen, one paper". Manga is good at turning 0 into 1. The director, actors, and music make everything from 1 to 10 to 100. And impress everyone. I wanted to show everyone that this is how silent manga can develop."
We apologize to all the attendees who could not be escorted into the venue. I would appreciate it if I could convey even a little bit of the atmosphere of the day. Although the Kumamoto International Manga Festival ended on a high note, some of the award-winning works are still on display in the departure lobby on the second floor of Aso Kumamoto Airport. For those of you who weren't able to come this time, please take a look!
