For starters, the final product is awe inspiring. A well designed package that really goes above the usual for a doujin manga. And it deserves it, after all it has a rather large number of pages, along with a DVD and the little cellphone charms that finally seal the whole thing as a high quality production.
It certainly is an honor to be a part of this, specially while you hold it and go through it. My biggest regret is that I didn't continue studying japanese, so most of it is incomprehensible to me.
Goals of the project
In the big picture, what Nakazako aimed to do with this project was raise the popularity and visibility of what are possibly the most ignored characters in Touhou. Did he really achieve something?
Yes. Actually a small part of the book is dedicated to graphs and studies on the rise of popularity of the girls, measured by pixiv and niconico mentions. And even on the western side of things you could notice it. By the time Fall hit, it was hard to go to a western touhou community that didn't make a reference to the sisters, while in previous years this honor only went to Letty when Winter neared.
So, mission accomplished on that front. We managed to improve their image a bit, enough to make everyone involved satisfied. Ok, I can't really talk for everybody, but that was the general vibe I noticed.
Reception
We have no idea. Nakazako maintains english communication sporadic, and among the information we are lacking is how well it sold on Comiket. This is conjecture, but I'm guessing that it was just enough to break even. After all, it is a relatively expensive product, for characters that don't have a following, and presented by a circle with no prior reputation as a manga circle. It was a battle uphill. Still, it seems like it sold good enough to not have that distinct bitter taste of having nobody buying at all and to cover the expenses.
From the western side of the fanbase, it has been pretty low key. Which in many aspects it's good as it shows that the parties involved have managed to be more professional than other attempts. And I'm referring specifically to Another Dream here. But more on that later.
Overall, the foreign parts were well received, being declared by most as "surprisingly good".
The western stigma
In general, the fanbase in the west is childish. I refer not just to touhou, but anime in general. The internet is plagued by all manner of fanworks of questionable quality. Of course, there are some good parts, but it's hard to find them.
This particular circle originates from 4chan's /jp/ after all, so the biggest problem was fighting with the fact that we know the worst that the fanbase can offer, along with a sense of "why bother" that pervades us. Indeed we claim to be better than the more childish sections of the fanbase, but in the end we are petrified by a fear of doing anything at all.
Which is what makes me so glad of seeing the final western contributions to the anthology. The art was above average for most, along with the writing. Of course, there's still a lot of space for improvement, but it certainly shows that the western side of the touhou fanbase is capable of producing something beyond the tired fanon memes.
And here's where I focus on Another Dream. It is bad, just plain bad, and it's potentially harmful for a single reason. It breeds complacency, a culture of being happy with what's offered and not improving. It's not all wasted, there are some parts of it that can be salvaged and you can see the attempts to go beyond the recycling of memes. When compared to the anthology, Another Dream is just pitiful. Hopefully, practice and critique will make it better. After all, they're working on it frequently so eventually they should be able to do something better, but only if the self-congratulating is dropped.
Still, it all remains the same. Most western works still have that stench of low quality fanfic, and it will still be hard to be taken seriously.
On development
This section is focused on my personal experience working on the final thing. What we went for was a mixture of ideals, using some of the tools of western comics I had picked up and the years of reading manga. This affected not only the style of the storytelling, but the actual development.
American comics usually are segmented, with a writer doing a descriptive script that is passed to a penciler, which is passed to an inker, which in turn is colored. Overall, it's a long process that needs editors overseeing the whole thing and in the end the product has no clear author. Sure, we usually focus on the writers when discussing, but in the end it all falls to how the artist manages to capture the ideas put down in paper.
Japanese system however is largely creator oriented. The artist is the same writer, so he doesn't struggle with a proxy to get the mental idea to ink on paper. Of course there are assistants to do the legwork, but it's mostly the vision of the creator that ends on paper.
So what our small team of two persons did was work closely on scheduled dates. And the scheduling was really important for the project. Milestones were checked, and it was a time to discuss page layouts, imagery, and the direction of the story. And I'm satisfied with this, Anonymous of California not only took the everchanging script, but made it his own. Of course, many panels were not like I had pictured them on my mind, but they ended up better. The sequential storytelling was tighter, pages not so cramped, and the story was free to flow.
Regrets
Of course I have some regrets, but I learned from them. First of all, it's important to synthesize ideas and have a definite route, specially when the pages available are so limited.
Originally, I had more subplots, basically showing how a lot of the cast interacted with the sisters. The Yaki Imo was to be served on old Bunbunmaru newspapers, Mokou helping with the bonfire, and a two page spread of everyone eating. It was dumb and it cramped the pages.
However, I regret having to cut most of the tree panels. The idea was that every page had as the last panel a view of the tree slowly losing its leaves as the panel size shrank. It was rhythmic, it showed time progression, and it took too much space. I genuinely regret having to cut most of it, but a lot remained, just enough to give the sense of passage of time, but lacking the necessary repetition to hammer it into the reader. And yes, it was an Alan Moore sort of thing.
On silent storytelling
It is hard. To this day I'm not sure I managed to tell the whole thing and make it clear enough for the reader to understand. But it was a fair bet, as my intention was to make it easy for someone with a bare grasp of english to pick up. The opening panel had a text balloon to serve not only as a contrast to the rest of the work, but to guide the reader that it is a left-to-right comic. It didn't work well, as it was only a single balloon and the action drove the eye left-wise, opposite of what was wanted. On its own it doesn't work as wanted, but as part of the anthology it's pretty clear.
It was difficult to fight the need for exposition. For example, the second page has Wriggle sobbing and the sisters looking all sorts of confused. Did I manage to convey the whole feeling of seeing someone sad, but not knowing how to act or comfort staying on the sidelines instead? Or the guilt that it causes them knowing that cicadas die because of the colder months, and what was a motive of celebration before is the source of pain to someone close?
The impotency of trying to help someone grieving while seeing that someone else is capable of showing care by something as simple as a hand on a shoulder. Yeah, I don't think all of that got through. On the other hand, putting balloons would have ruined it even more, making the action redundant. Argh, it kills me. Still have much to learn.
But overall, I think we managed to pull it off, specially on the last sequence, which I admit has a heavier hand by the artist. Instead of being so panel detailed, he went with his vision of the scene. It works better than mine did. Live and learn, something more streamlined is necessary when going with silent storytelling.
On the collision with reality
Interesting enough, around the time I received the anthology, I was experiencing Autumn for the first time. Oddly fitting, and it made me realize of something important: Personal experience trumps everything.
For one, it's colder than I expected, and far more haunting. Biking past the same tree every day and seeing it turn colors only to become a husk of itself is different when you're there. What I wish I could have incorporated was that not-quite-that-cold feeling that Fall nights have. Not like snowy days, but still enough to make you rub your hands and put on a sweater. That realization that the days of wearing t-shirts are gone and the long months of cold are coming. Still, in the end it would have ended as another subplot abandoned, but a little gesture like people huddling closer to the bonfire would have gone a long way to reflect the Fall I see now.
Concluding
Feels good man. It was a decent work that went to be part of a great thing. Lessons on writing were learned, and I catch myself now paying more attention to not only the way dialog is worded on comics, but the page layout, panel use and other little things. I seek to go further and explore that blurry line of comics with japanese traits that is not just big eyes or other marketing gimmicks, use sequential art as a better tool to tell stories.
As for the future of the circle, I don't really know. Maybe go for the Parsee Anthology, or do something longer for release online. Who knows, it really depends on the other half of the group and if things fall right once again.
One thing is for certain, we must remember the lessons of Mr. Cake and seek to do things that are good on their own and not just because it's a western circle.
