I decide to start writing down thoughts about manga (Japanese word for "comics") that I read. It might be interesting if I look back at these thought 10 or 20 years later of my life :)
Interesting thing is, the first manga I want to write about is not by a Japanese artist.
Title: Young Guns
Artist: Lin Zheng de (林政德)
Apparently this is a very popular manga in Taiwan during the 90s. The artist is from Taiwan and Young Guns is his most famous work. Young Guns started at 1990 and finished at 2010 with 12 volumes.
Young Guns is a slice of life/situational comedy type manga. It doesn't really have a major plot line. The story focus on the life of main character, a 1st year senior high student JianPing Yuan (袁建平). It begins with JianPing falling in love on first sight with HuiWen Su (蘇慧文), a 2nd year senior high girl JianPing he met on the school bus. The story revolved around JianPing's high school life, about how he tried to win the affection of HuiWen and about all the other new interesting friends he meet and the misunderstanding that arises.....
The main male casts: ShinPeng Zhang (張士朋), JianPing Yuan (袁建平), and RiHui Yeung (楊日輝)The story may not sound very interesting but the casts left me a very deep impression. The three main male characters are what considered to be trouble makers in any high school. The artist tried to portrait them as the "handsome bad-ass" type. They often drive the humor of the story and shows the troubled side of boys in school.
The female cast from left to right: HuiWen, Daiya, YouLan, JiangPing's sister, BaoJin, and I don't remember who the last person is...I love the female casts of the manga. Each of the girls are beautiful in their own way. Not only there is the smart, beautiful, top of the class HuiWen, there is also the sexy but trouble making girl YouLan Ji (紀幼蘭), the cold appearing class-rep Daiya Chen (陳玳雅), and the cute neighborhood type girl BaoJin Zhong(鍾寶津). They are often the cause of trouble for the boys at that age and brings many misunderstanding.
The artist's drawing is all right. The facial expression needs more work, but the artist pays a lot of attention to the fashion design and that really gives each character individuality.
One things that really make this manga stand out: the dialogues. The artist really pay attention to the use of slang. Just like the fashion in Young Guns, the dialogues really give individually to each characters.
I had a good laugh reading this manga. I finished all 12 books in one sitting. It is very enjoyable, but I didn't really like the ending. I believe Young Guns was originally intended to be a much longer series, but the artist's situation just doesn't allow it. Young Guns would probably have a better conclusion if it finished with 19 books like the manga "Suzuka."
