I had a fantastic weekend, filled with animation, music and laughter. Thank you all! :)

There was an article about the growing popularity of manga drawing courses in today's paper. As usual, our papers do an excellent job of spotting a treand long after it's entrenched itself here.

What was interesting was the unanimous opinion of instructors from all three schools -- that the work produced by students and manga enthusiasts here "lacks maturity".

How true. Technical skill was never an issue, not here. It's imagination; the ability to break out of rehashed plots, slapstick and cliched devices that we lack.

In my personal opinion, this is because the artists tend to be in their teens or young adulthood, and they don't read much outside of Japanese manga. In fact, often not outside particular genres of manga. Without exposure to other forms of story-telling and other drawing styles, no wonder their work lacks depth.