Rising Stars of Manga, Volume 1

this manga is very good it has a bunch of storys from action to comedy!!good for any one who wants to see the artists love of manga!!but before u buy one u should check it out to see if u like it.I gave it 4 stars because i wasn't crazy for it ....but over all its an awsome manga ^-^. by manga loveing whistle hating.. zatch bell fan

I'll admit, I bought this book because a) I was interested in entering future Rising Stars of Manga contests, and b) I think manga opens up a lot of great possibilities for American comic artists and wanted to chip in my $ to support the venture. I went in with pretty low expectations about the content.As such, I was pleasantly surprised. A lot of the stories have problems of one kind or another---several lack professional polish or a really substantial story, and still others suffer from a "too designed/overdrawn" look (the level of black/white contrast or stylization is about the same on all the elements and panels, giving a "noisy" effect to the overall pages and not letting anything stand out), but there is a lot of good art and story in here, and it's very refreshing in many to see a manga-like approach taken to American settings and concerns.My story by story breakdown:The Grand Prize Winner, "Devil's Candy" is not my favorite. It's excellently drawn and the cute/goth/punk setting is loads of quirky fun, but in many places it has that busy, overdrawn look that I mentioned, and the story isn't really moving; it comes across as a lot of manga cliches shaken and stirred.Speaking of Manga cliches, the second place story, "Van Von Hunter" uses lots of them in a clever and amusing parody (plus the occasional metastory gag: "Hey, you read the balloons!"). This one makes good use of shading and the pages and panels for the most part are well-designed. Not quite a professional polish, but close. The story isn't quite to my own taste, being a parody that isn't too awfully original, but if you like Slayers, you should like this.The third story, "The Little Match Girl" is based on a Hans Christian Andersen story, but the entrant did a wonderful job of envisioning it in the comics medium. Again, good shading, and this was the best entry in terms of giving the pages an overall design, to excellent effect both visually and in terms of narrative pacing. The effect in the end is heartwrenching. My one complaint: this was apparently done on a computer at too low resolution; the art looks pixellated.I also loved "Trickster"; again, the art is a little unpolished and the concept of a shoujo-manga about a supernaturally-gifted high school student is nothing new, but this is an excellent rendition of it, and I just loved seeing such a concept done in terms of American mythologies. And I just had to love Bianca's dad!"Emmalyne's Mansion" suffers most from the too-designed loud page problem. The stylization of the characters and the use of line is very skilled and utterly delicious, but everything is rendered in that style and with very little use of shading/tone, so the result is a sort of visual anarchy that makes certain moments difficult to read. The story, while sweet, is also rather pat."Pest" also has the loud-page problem, though not as much. Here everything is rendered in bold shapes and stark black/white contrast, but it all remains clear.