Synopsis
A step by step guide on how to not be a salaryman, by individuals who were never destined to be one. How will they perform?
How It Started:
Welcome to the Posting Our L's series, where by I, Pistol Taeja aka Kim Taeja, takes a look back at works that were completed or currently in progress.
There is no larger point in writing this article. Instead, it is mostly here to document the past actions, things that were learned, not learned and to improve as an artist, developer and human being.
Despite having worked in the games industry as a developer for 7+ years at the time. Creating this manga was difficult as heck. I did not appreciate how much effort goes into producing a simple 10 page manga!
Which brings us to the topic of Being Salaryman.
Before beginning the journey of creating my own "Enemy" universe, I wanted to explore the idea of transplating a person from one culture to another. Such a skillset would be really good for moving characters around in a larger universe.
During random hour long discussion about topics not related to this manga, an online friend who is African American mentioned leaving America.
I wondered, If he was to be put into a story, What kind of story would it be?
Is it possible to use the framework of an Isekai to take an ordinary person from the USA and throw them into Japan, being reborn as an ordinary person?
Isekai's have come along way as a medium; Almighty Truck-Kun is being called upon by a no-name writer like myself to aid in the killing of an average person so he can be reborn in another country. What would it look like?
With a little back and forth, some editting and using what experience I have. I created over 20 different situations where an average person was taken from their country and send to another country in the exact same time period.
Refining these down, I settled on sending a pair of individuals from America to Japan.
I wrote a 2000 word treatment of what the characters would be like and drew what you see below.
How it Ended:
I had absolutely no experience creating a manga at the start but, similar to everyone else, I do love reading manga.
The plan moving forward was clear to me.
1: Create a bullet point story for each page.
2: Use Microsoft Paint to draw each page for an actual artist to create a story board
3: Send the Storyboard to another artist to finalise it
4: Pray!
At this stage we have succesfully executed parts one and two of the plan and things are looking good. I met a great artist on fiverr; whom I am still in contact with and he was able to take my crappy drawings and notes to produce a fantastic storyboard.
Having the storyboard artist be passionate and japanese worked out very well. I want to say I totally planned it! I did not!
Final Thoughts
So what did we learn through all of this?
1: My ideas are weird as heck.
2: Respect artists for their craft.
The Isekai format is still very much an effective means to transplant an individual from the world they know and put them on their very own hero's journey
The overall story is not as potent as it could be in order to truly stand out in the current market of works. In 10 pages, I was unable to leave a taste in expectations as to what the characters would do now they have been transported as a salaryman.
This is a huge pitfall in my writing ability that I need to work on.
This article you are reading is also another example of my poor writing.
I will continue to work on this matter.
Thanks for sticking around.
- Taeja
