:: Join Us and We Will Create a Manga ::

[chibamonster]

Many people on the Claymore sub forum expressed interest in bouncing ideas off of each other to make a manga. I thought it would be a fun experiment to see what people come up with for it. Here is the game plan: As a group we are going to create a story and work towards a manga. We have plenty of gifted people on the forums doing various things for fun anyway so lets see what happens when we put our minds together.

Some things have been decided already. If there is anything you want to see in the story or things that bother you let us know. I will try to keep the first post as a summary of where the story stands.

EDIT: The Story So Far

The story is a steam punk that takes place in a revamped teched out ancient civilization; ancient China or Japan. Still working on world design and style. The main characters so far; Enara: a young apprentice mechanic from a small town. Lady Fay a Knight and a powerful warrior with a troubled past. Kai, a mute one armed one eyed boy with a collar that prevents him from speaking who was developed as a weapon of mass destruction.

We are currently working on fleshing out a script for the very first installation. Feedback and comments are welcome. Check here to see what is up with the story.

And here are some concept drawings that have been done. Kagedanji also did a pretty cool one of a character but the link is down. There will be more of this coming soon. Everyone has been a huge help by adding comments. Thanks to all participants .

Spoiler for Derelict88's older drawings that he felt had relevant styles. Yes he is good.:

Spoiler for Some concepts I did. I like some, not others.:

[chibamonster]

First idea I had; a manga telling the story behind Kairin, the animesuki mascot. For some reason I see her as a dream warrior; someone who can walk through the landscape of dreams and effect reality. She is set as a guardian who keeps the dream world from interfering with the real world but something goes wrong. A powerful Nightmare escapes and gains power in the real world and she is sent to fight against it gaining some human allies who can use her almost as a weapon. Play on the interaction between humans and their dreams, fears, emotions and so on etc. Tagline: You are always dreaming.

[Torri_fay_torren@hot]

That's an interesting idea. Does she have a weapon yet? Something to channel her power through? What about her friends? How exactly do they tap into her power. Here's just an idea. Her friends have these jems or cristals that allow them to acces her power and with them they can (limitedly)manipulate the world around them like a dream. Like maybe change advents? or perhaps summon a creater from there own dreams? Oh and do we have a guy friend yet? I think the guy needs to be macho. I don't want a girly man that is to say someone who looks like Isley No offense to isley lovers.

[toxic_trance]

uh..well..u guys are obviously free to do what u want, but I am already making a manga using the version of Kairin I had made as a Claymore.. I have put up the first 3 pages too in my art thread

[King Lycan]

love the idea about using Kairin...is she gonna be a claymore or AO

[chibamonster]

We do not necessarily have to base it off the claymore world. I was thinking it would be interesting to use people's creative brain power to create something new, seeing what kinds of twists and turns we could come up with as a group as opposed to just thinking up things by ourselves. But this is a game and we invent the rules.

@Toxic, I do remember the comic pages. She manipulated youki in a simmilar way Galatea did to Agatha's attack.

Kairin seems rather ethereal to me, that is where the dream thing comes from. For a weapon I am thinking a sword because I saw an awesome picture of her in a kimono. I imagine that her friends from the dream world would probably be some of the people you see in your dreams that you do not know. They could be their own civilization. As for human friends, I am thinking she attaches to an insomniac. It could be a manly insomniac . She might not be able to effect the world without a human powering her. Although it might be fun to have a form of "awakening" where humans take direct control over the dream world or the dreamed physically manifest themselves. Maybe both.

I like the idea of the dreamers and the dreamed having a connection Torri_fay_torren@hot, especially summoning creators of dreams. There could be an interesting circle where dreamers create people like Kairin, and the dream figures actually effect the real world; natural disasters, disease, weather, miracles and so on. A chance to personify characteristics of people and such. But again, just an idea.

We could go a different way completely and not even use Kairin though. We could do something completely different. Here is another idea I had for a less fantastic story. Title: Terminal (or Fearless). Teenage homeless orphan is hospitalized after collapsing at the mall. He is told he cancer and that it will kill him. In the hospital he meets a girl who is also waiting to die from another disease. They never say how long they are supposed to live to one another. She comes from an extremely wealthy and extremely abusive family. They decide to run away together and live their lives in a condensed amount of time stealing money from her parents and doing everything they wanted to in whatever time they have left, throwing off socially accepted. They take pictures, write letters and film themselves so they will be remembered. Story starts when they are doing crazy things and their history is not discovered until later. Story could be told from the point of view of discovering the document of their adventures. Tagline: Live each day like it is your last. With this story we could just create the characters and put them into situations to see how they would respond and such.

[toxic_trance]

ah..her power is more like Miria in my doujin, but then again, thats part of the story. But yeah, something other than Claymore would be great, I plan to restart on it and finish it in May.

[derelict88]

An original!!

If taking Kairin... doesnt take defeat the purpose of originality?

Anyways, Kairin aside. Let me dust off my cranium and come up with an original premise.

BRB.


***thinky, thinky, thinky***

[derelict88]

Found one.

How about a work set in the STEAMPUNK genre. So far I have yet to read any good steampunk titles. Last Exile started promising but failed in the end. Bad ending makes a bad lasting impression. Full Metal Alchemist, not bad but seems heavy lately. Steamboy, had so much promise before it started only to fail horribly in the cinema. Damn! Crono Crusade seems childish in a sweet sort of way. D-gray man? Well I cant say I know that title represent (yet to read - is it any good?.

So there you have it. A setting in a steampunk universe with a lil interplay of magic and the supernatural ala Alan Moore's Jack the Ripper. Any takers?

Chiba, btw once you have enough ideas. make another thread that one can pick as the title for an ongoing manga. Cheers

[chibamonster]

D. Greyman was an enjoyable read for me. It reminds me a lot of Bleach and Naruto except it is darker. As opposed to Naruto's issue with isolation vs friendship or ichigo's issue with protecting his friends Allan Walker is always thinking of saving humans (namely his friends) and demons alike. I do think it is deeper than bleach and Naruto for where it is in its story as it is relatively new. As for being steam punk it has little focus on the technology of the era instead looking more at the magical abilities characters have.

The coolest part of steam punk to me is the world design, especially the giant machines, trains, flying machines, and so on. I agree that steam punk usually falls short on interesting me with their characters despite having a whole lot of possibility to be awesome. For world design I think it would be a lot of fun to have a giant gap between the steam technology and those who did not have it. I would also put it at a different time than the Victorian era to give it a totally different feel. Maybe go ancient egyptian, greek, roman, ancient china, feudal japan, king Arthur's time or something along those lines to really give it a unique feel. Sort of like the feel for the original Stargate where myths are brought back as technological terrors. I am thinking Atlantas and Greek Mythology type stuff.

As cyberpunk has to have hackers, there must be a gifted steam machine technician in the cast; probably someone very young doing an apprenticeship who gets caught up in the outside world. Put it between a massive war between empires where steam powered monsters/ships fight against each other. I'd put the focus on the human story to make up for what other steam punk lacks for me. Go the way of Laputa or Nausica and the valley of the wind and put it as a coming of age story for the main character as they deal with the reality and tragedy of war. Maybe even focus on a smaller struggle (like a small town having to pay taxes to the empire) to keep it more personalized than a world wide war with the fate of humanity in the balance. Then throw some sky pirates led by a Princess (who everyone thinks is a boy) because hey, I love sky pirates.

[derelict88]

chibamonster
Man I like where you are going with this!
I feel that you have set the tone on this baby mate. Agreed the Victorian age is been there done that. Creating too wide a gap might make sneaky comparison with World of Warcraft. So lets go there. I like your idea on the Chinese and Japanese settings. I also like your take on the greek mythos too. Lets continue building on this.

As for character. I again like your line of thot. Instead of coming out with main character... how about we come up with the gist of the manga /comic. For example I felt it will be nice if we made the story on borderline grey... no evil nor good right on the onset until such time that we need to introduce major development. This will lessen the burden of taking sides in the storyline.

Lets spin a few more genre before setting our steamy sight on the above mentioned genre...

So far I like your style of thinking mate. Cheers

Edit: My fingers are itchy already. I am going with the chinese angle and come up with some designs. Dont worry, we will change the setting if there is a need for a common call. Cheers!

[Tempest35]

I'll keep an eye on this thread.

[hell88]

I kind of have some ideas of a story that could be used but I haven't thought it up real good yet but I will. Its kind of confusing though it reminds me of x-men and mutation and experimenting on mutants or creating a higher breed of human being. Its basically about people that are experimented on and given some crazy ability, and each ability is different but some can be replicated. The scientists only take teenagers and kids as adults can't be experimented on because they could die easily during the experimentation haven't thought up why yet. Anyways the experiments are always sent on missions which usually include death. Until one day one of the experiments a young teenage boy decides to rebal against his creators and frees a bunch of the experiments mabye 9 or 10. They decide to do good things like saving people and that stuff. But the mad scientists create more experiments on people that can go and get back or kill the ones that escaped, and thats all I have thought up so far. Tell me what you think chibamonster, it sounds cool and it could probably be a very dark story with lots of the main characters dying and all that.

[Torri_fay_torren@hot]

Chibimonster I like were this is going. It sort of reminds me a little like Samuri 7.
and Derelict88 I like the grey area angle you got going. Its not instent good vs evil I think that makes it a little more mature with just that. What I mean is, no goverment or organisation is perfect. Oh and yes we have to have hackers. Mybe the boy that gets caught up in all this is a hacker and that is why he gets all involved. Mybe some group needs him or he comes across some sort of information. He just gets into it to deep and has to grow up. Oh and whatever group or organisation or something that he encounters has to have a girl that kicks tale either as a commander or is high up or something. We can't have a sissy anoying girl.

Hell 88 your idea is also intresting. This kid though would have to have some kind of amasing powers to keep up with the orginsation's experiments

[Tempest35]

I'm just going to pick some random ideas and run with them for a bit.

Chiba's idea : 'Steam Punk' Theme w/Greecian overtones - can have either pure machine tech or have it mixed with arcane. Must be careful to avoid similar storylines with M. Shirow's Appleseed.

The Pantheon = each 'diety'/ruler has it's own territory (ie. city, region, etc). 'Zeus' (merely a title given to the current leader of the Pantheon) has no region but oversees all within the Empire/Known World.

'Sons of Zeus' - (Theseus, Hercules, etc) elite personal bodyguard to Zeus. They all have their own special ability/steam device that somehow mimics their namesake. May or may not have to confront them as antagonists.

Theseus could be 'ousted' from Olympus for whatever reason (taking/stealing his 'Pegasus' with him)(upheaval, desertion, special assignment from Zeus, etc) and finds himself on the outskirts of the Empire. As to what he's looking for, it could be anything - all he has is a cryptic remark to go by on his quest, "Seek the Beginning".

Or switching it a bit to include Theseus having to find Jason and thus having to assemble the Argonauts.... that sounds so 'A-Team'....

Can have the Titans in this as well, either as advisors or the ousted First Rulers or whatever.

[Enara]

as long as there one girl who is strong. I'm Happy.

[chibamonster]

@hell88: When I thought of human testing to develop a newer species, the first advancements I thought they might do are telekinesis, telepathy, pyrokinesis, levitation, spontaneous healing, photographic memory, reading people's energy fields, computer like thinking, savantism and other reported super human or supernatural abilities that you hear about from time to time. Sort of like manufacturing miracles. Research requires consistent test subjects so the people who made it in would have to pass a number of screenings.

Now if I were going to run those experiments I would either do them where the law does not matter and I could take children to my heavily secured facility or I if it were in a major country I would need to make sure none of them ever escaped. It all depends on how the research is done. If it were painful I would never let them out unless they washed out or were part of a less intense research operation. If possible the testing group would test techniques on the children but then use the same techniques on special forces or people who paid a high enough price. Or loan the kids out to whoever is funding the research. But using them in missions would be really tough because the kids would most likely have little loyalty after being experimented on. If they got away it would have to be the result of some crazy accident.

The most important thing to me with a sci fi theme like this would be the underlying message you wanted to convey. Sort of like how Minority Report had the idea that you control your own destiny. You could base it off real government experiments with psychics, like the United States training and use of Remote Viewers. Kind of reminds me of Akira .

Steampunk idea: I would love to see ancient civilizations revamped to battle each other in steam punk glory. The greeks going against the chinese with would be something else. I think the contrast in design would be a lot of fun. The image of watching them going off to battle reminds me of this old man I knew in Japan who told me how as a child he watched American bombers flying over his tiny town on their way to major cities and how he and his friends thought they were the coolest things ever. He did not understand what was going on as a child. The war never touched his small village.

@Enara: I like strong female leads in stories. Anime and manga have a lot more of them than western counterparts. Claymore, Ghost in the shell, Nausica and the valley of the wind, and Princess Mononoke come to mind. I'd vote for one or many when the time comes to do character designs .

[hell88]

Yeah I geuss my idea could get a little too confusing, and would take a lot of time to explain things, which no body likes. Especially if there is a cliffehanger every month. XD

[Enara]

Also if you can no " good hero thing" you all know what I mean... Ichigo from bleach ect. ect. the good hero beat's the crap out of every one they fight but will never kill... It's just get's old and fast because the bad guy never die's. I would also like it if the story could still be a story with out the main person in it. and we'd have to kill off some main people from time to time. so death's all around

and to Hell88 your Idea sound's a bit River Tam from firefly. not the story it self but what they did to her. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/River_tam look at her character description

[derelict88]

this was done some time back but I thot why not... I think the style is still relevent. Please advice.

Spoiler for pix:

[img]http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?i...8620031nt3.jpg[/img]

Edit: Damn... not good at linking... ROFL