The recently concluded Manga Planet India Project in 2017 was a success in all fronts. The project aimed to gauge the Indian Pop-culture lovers in India and also had a vision of discovering the response towards original content creation. Questions like ‘Does India have an audience who love Original Content?’ or ‘Do the Indian Comic Book lovers love only the popular titles or is there scope for original content?’ were answered with this project.
This year, MPI created two original content targeted for the Indian Audiences.
After School, Story by Yasunori Kasuga; Illustrated by Umiharu & The Golden Age of Decadence, Story by Yasunori Kasuga; Illustrated by Yutsuki Inumura.Both the titles targeted a different section of audiences. After School targeted the younger audiences who have been a fan of Japanese School Manga Stories and The Golden Age of Decadence targeted a genre that loves super natural mysteries.
They have adapted the traditional manga releasing format of launching one chapter each week on their official website mangaplanet.jp as well as their Facebook page. The project has over a million supporters on their global Social Media page and almost half of that in India alone.
These two manga titles were promoted extensively by Super Sugoii in India. Super Sugoii did not only manage their Social Media account but also managed the promotions of their entire project for 2017. Four talented Cosplayers from India were hired to bring the leading characters of the two Manga titles to life during two conventions in India. These brilliant artists not only cosplayed the characters wonderfully but also added their own quirk to the entire project.
When asked about the experience to the two mastermind of this project, Hidekatsu Shimono from DNP and Hiroki Kurihara from Fantansista they collectively stated that ‘India has a passion for Pop-culture that is quite unique and expressive than the rest of the Asian cultures. Our vision is to grow and preserve the Japanese Comic book culture in the world, and India plays a key role in accomplishing out vision’.
Here’s wishing the team best of luck in accomplishing their target for the future.
