Today we will be taking a look at all the manga that Taishi Tsutsui has worked on , I will be talking about each one of them and comparing them as to showcase the journey that the mangaka has been through for the past decade. We will be starting with his first ever manga , Esprit.
Esprit is a fantasy , action manga from Taishi Tsutsui , it is set in a world where numerous islands are called "homes" and people of a particular home have little to no knowledge about other homes. These homes are discovered and are kept in check by the agents of the "ocean affairs agency" , from here on I will be referring to these agents as OA agents (ocean affairs agents). These OA agents have certain powers called jinxes which stem from a person's faith. For example , if I believe with all my heart that I can cause weather changes then I will gain that power or jinx. The story follows an apprentice OA agent Mio and her friends' adventures , as they explore these homes and uncover certain secrets of the past. The summary heavily suggests this to be a one piece style long shounen series , well it is a shounen series but it has only 30 chapters which I feel is a major strength of the manga. It gives a nice , short and to the point storyline and doesn't drag the story unnecessarily.
The major strength of the manga is it's plot , now some may argue that it follows some generic tropes but before making that point , consider the fact that it came out in 2008 , back then the market was not saturated by these tropes , so ten years ago it provided a very refreshing storyline. The art style is pretty good for the most part but there is a bit of inconsistency in it. Take a look at the two pages below , both are from Esprit but just look at the difference in the quality of art between the two.
Other than the inconsistent art style , another major flaw of the manga was the poor explaining of some of the jinxes , there were a few characters whose jinxes were too vaguely presented or outright were not explained at all and this really took a lot away from the otherwise good storyline. It is clear that Tsutsui has improved his art a lot since Esprit came out as it's art comes nowhere near the art of his newer works.
The character designs are pretty good , everyone has a unique personality and I was very surprised to see the amount of character development that Tsutsui was able to to pull off in just 30 chapters.
Esprit gave a major boost to Tsutsui's career and after it ended in February 28th 2011 , he returned on May 30th of the same year with his new manga Fukashigi Philia.
Fukashigi Philia is a thriller manga , and once again Tsutsui delivered a fantastic and well rounded story , and if you thought that delivering a comprehensive story in 30 chapters was good then this time he accomplished it in just 16 . Contrary to Esprit , this was a pure thriller with an intense and serious tone to it. The art style was similar to what was seen in Esprit , but while reading this I realised that the quality of Tsutsui's art considerable drops when he is making pages in which the characters are shown from a distance. Now , this might just be an artistic choice but either way this makes the art feel inconsistent. This inconsistency can be seen in the following two pages.
Fukashigi Philia , other than its inconsistent artstyle was really well executed and thriller fans are sure to enjoy it. But for anyone who cannot handle edgy characters , skip this one as the only major weakness that I can think about is the ridiculous amounts of edge in it , but that edge is well justified for the most part and if you can look past it , there is a great story for you to enjoy. I , personally recommend you guys to atleast give this a try. Also , while he was doing this manga , he also drew the art for Steins;Gate: Hiyoku Renri No Sweets Honey which was only two chapters long.
Since this Steins Gate spinoff manga was only two chapters long and Tsutsui only drew the art for it , many people might write it off as insignificant but in my opinion this manga was a pivotal point in Tsutsui's career , as this is the first manga in which his art seems somewhat close to what his art style is now. In the previous two manga , his art had a more rustic feel to it but this one had a more of a slice of life feel , which is what his art is now like. The comparison below will probably illustrate this point better.
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| Esprit |
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| Steins;Gate |
And this change in art style changed the kind of manga he made , from the rustic story driven style of manga , he switched over to the mellow and light-hearted slice of life genre , thus this steins gate spinoff was a major turning point in his career. He implemented this change in art style for the first time by releasing Idoroll , a slice of life , music manga and it ended up being a disaster , it did not even get an English translation and ended after just five chapters.
It was a major failure was Tsutsui , a major reason why Idoroll failed was probably due to him working simultaneously on a completely different manga , Missile to plancktone as an artist. The artstyle of Missile to plancktone is a weird mix of Tsutsui's old and new stuff , probably this was a bit too distracting for Tsutsui and thus he was not able to give his full attention to Idoroll , but to be very honest , I did not feel Idoroll's art to be anywhere near being good.
After these turn of events , a lot of people may have expected Tsutsui to return to his old style but he stuck to his guns , implemented everything that he had learned from Idoroll and released a new manga , Magical Patissière Kosaki Chan.
Magical Patissière Kosaki Chan is a school life , echhi manga with slice of life elements in it. The art style of this manga is much more polished and improved from what we saw in Idoroll. It even provides a comprehensive and enjoyable story and is something that cemented Tsutsui's new art style. It follows the story of a high-schooler Kosaki Chan who receives the powers of a Magical Girl and now needs to accomplish her mission of saving the magical as well as the human world. This summary might sound a bit cheesy and that's because it is , the manga is cheesy and somewhat generic , so for anyone who doesn't like the whole magical girl genre , skip this one. I personally thought that the manga was fairly decent , but the major point that I want to put forth is the improvement in art style , take a look at the page below and compare it to Fukashigi Philia or Esprit and you will clearly see the difference.
Magical Patissière Kosaki Chan was much more appreciated than Idoroll and that made Tsutsui stick to his new art syle, thus he came out with another manga which is currently a weekly series in Shounen Jump , We never learn.
We never learn is a slice of life , school , echhi , harem manga which follows Yuiga Nariyuki , a hard working high school student who is aiming to receive a college scholarship so that he can support his poor family. The principal of his school promises him the scholarship if he helps two of his classmates , Furuhashi Fumino , a genius in literature and Ogata Rizu , a genius in science , to get into their dream colleges. The problem is that Furuhashi wants to do a major in science while Ogata wants a major in literature despite them failing in those subjects. A very interesting plot in my opinion and something that would work really well with the slice of life genre. Now , if you thought that the art in his previous manga was good then you would probably be blown away by how much he improved it in this manga.
The art is a lot more consistent , the rustic feel is completely replaced by neat and crisp character designs with really well executed panelling of the pages. There is also a lot of well done comedic moments which I felt was always a strength of Tsutsui and we got a glimpse of his comedic timing in Esprit but in this manga that comedy takes the forefront and ensures an enjoyable time for the readers. This manga was so much more polished than Tsutsui's previous works that i was actually breathless when I saw the improvements. I am not going to say much and just show you a page from this manga , compare this page to all the previous pages and you will be shocked to see the amount of improvement that Tsutsui's art style went through the past decade.
This was a major reason why I chose Taishi Tsutsui as the mangaka for the first blog in this series , his art style and stories have gone through so much change , and it is so heartwarming to see him finally being able to nail this slice of life art style. He is one of my favourite mangakas and I recommend everyone to check his stuff out. Esprit , We never learn and to some extent Fukashigi Philia are highlights in his career and I hope everyone gives them a read. I wish him all the best and hope that he will continue to enchant us with his beautiful art.
And yeah , that's it , let me know what you think about this new series that I am starting. I hope you all enjoyed this blog as a LOT of work has gone into it. I will only be able to do this series for a maximum of two times a month as it takes around two weeks to make just one blog of this series. So yeah , leave your thoughts down in the comments below , your feedback is well appreciated.
Thanks a lot for reading , follow me on twitter @allaboutanimee for updates regarding the blog, share the blog if possible and have a nice day.
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