The development of Japan's manga industry is largely due to its mature industry mechanism and talent training system.
Where do Japanese manga artists learn to exercise before they officially create manga? There are both specialized schools and special professional education for them to learn manga, as well as the traditional Japanese assistant model.
Illustration from Cartoonist and Assistant
For example, the author of the familiar "One Piece", Eiichiro Oda, once learned to draw manga as an assistant under the author of "Ronin Kenshin" and Tsuki Shinhiro, and the author we want to introduce today is more legendary, he is the master of Oda Master, and it is to be counted as Oda's master.
He was also the teacher of Yusuke Murata, the remake of One Punch Man, but he became famous later than his apprentices.
He is a well-known Japanese manga artist: Ken Obata, whose representative works include "Chess Soul", "Pamphlet in the Human World", "Dream Eater" and so on.
Comic creation itself is a more time-consuming and laborious thing, a mature comic work basically does not have the situation of the cartoonist alone to create, basically will be paired with several assistants.
These assistants are basically paid and can learn drawing techniques with cartoonists.
Daily assistants will help cartoonists draw backgrounds, scenes and other secondary content, and after work, they will also learn the cartoonist's own creative ideas, drawing style, drawing skills, etc., called assistants, in fact, the same as apprentices.
Ken Obata has many well-known apprentices, in addition to the above-mentioned Nobuhiro Wataki and Yusuke Murata, Kentaro Yabuki, who has created manga such as "The Queen of the Bag" and "Black Cat", has also studied with him, and the author of "Kaneda Kazuna Incident Book" has also worked as an assistant under Ken Obata to learn manga drawing.
However, in the circle of manga lovers, Ken Obata, who is a teacher, became famous later than his apprentices.
Especially for domestic anime fans, a little older may have learned about him through "Chess Soul", and smaller friends learned that he was because of the later "Pamphlet in the Human World" and "Dream Eater", "Chess Soul" began to be serialized in 1998, and his apprentice and Tsuki Nobuhiro were famous for "Langke Sword Heart" as early as 1994, and the Kaneda series also began to be serialized as early as 1992.
This is not the most embarrassing, his apprentice Eiichiro Oda began serialization of "One Piece" in 1997, once upon a time, his old man's popularity in the circle of ordinary anime fans was indeed limited.
Although Mr. Ken Obata entered the industry very early, and the painting is very exquisite, and before that, he has created anime works such as "Grandpa G" and "Puppet Master Zuo Near", but the impact is not large, until the popularity of "Chess Soul" later, it is officially well known to the majority of ordinary anime fans.
The subsequent "Pamphlets in the World" and "Dream Eater" have further raised the popularity of Mr. Tabata Ken to a higher level. Both works are only responsible for painting, and Oba is responsible for screenwriting, but his superb drawing, character expression and body drawing, and skillful storyboarding bring a breathtaking story to us through the artistic language of manga.
However, although Japanese society is hierarchical, with a strict master-apprentice inheritance, etc., but generally still exist in traditional industries, such as catering, kendo and the like, in the manga industry, there is basically no formal worship, apprenticeship and the like, and even assistants to several manga artists to learn manga, a lifetime of inability to debut the situation is also common.
The assistant system also has its own drawbacks and imperfections, for example, some people say that this system will hinder the author's creativity or something, such as kishimoto Kishi's several apprentices, the painting style is a bit fixed, and I have not heard that there is too good development, the best one, but also inherited the mantle of the master to create "Hirohito Biography".
But there is no doubt that the Japanese animation industry can have today's achievements, and such inheritance and training are inseparable.
In contrast, the domestic manga industry and the Japanese industry are still relatively different, the master-apprentice inheritance system is not perfect, in comparison, I personally feel that the Japanese assistant system is more suitable, the domestic animation industry wants to catch up, but also need to continue to work hard to catch up.