Part 4 - Day 1 - The Manga Factory

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Note: You are reading Kengaku no Nikki - Part 4 - Day 1: The Manga Factory. Please scroll down to read the earlier parts.

Rei no Kengaku no Nikki is a mini report on Rei's short animation-study tour to Japan with the Singapore Poly Digital Media Group earlier in September 2008.
Click on the links to the left to access other sections of the Junior Manga Challenge!

The Manga Factory

One floor down and we arrive at the Manga Factory! A real course at college dedicated to teaching the art of manga, at Nippon Kogakuin Creator's College.

Shhh....mangaka-tachi in training at work! There were at least 40-50 mangaka students in this classroom, each working on their own original work. You can put half of the JMC participants in here! :P

They don't call this floor the Manga Factory for nothing!

Unlike the Animation Factory on the previous floor, it is really really quiet in here! At the back on the shelves are published manga stories all created by the students used to promote the Manga Creators course offered here.

100% concentration! He didn't really mind me snapping photos of him...

Close up shot of a mangaka sketching.

Here's an interesting girl mangaka whose all dressed in a Gothic inspired costume. The guy in white behind is the manga sensei.

Manga page shot

Some Manga-art work

The cubicle.

Here's how the cubicle for the mangaka students look like. Just a single working desk and no workstation. Manga is done traditionally with manual tools in here. Erm...this cubicle is a little bit special. Looks like an Xbox 360 set up here! LOL

Its not very big and in one aisle, there are at least 7 of these little cubicles where the students sit and work on their manga.

Outside the classroom, there's a display cabinet containing a compilation of original manga work done by the students. These bibles are published by the college on behalf of the students and used mainly to promote the manga creator's course.

Unfortunately these books aren't for sale outside of the college and according to sensei, the printing cost have been taken into account when the students paid their college semester and enrollment fees. The college does have affliates with some major publishing companies in Japan and the good students are hired immediately out of graduation to work there.

And More Student-Made Manga!

Up next, the digital art and VFX department, so stay tune!

Part 3 - Day 1: The Animation Factory

Note: You are reading Part 3 of Kengaku no Nikki, please scroll down to read the earlier parts of the story!

Please click on the links on the left to access other sections of the Junior Manga Challenge blog.

The Animation Factory, located on the 6th floor of the Creator's College.

Presenting Japan's new generation of aspiring anime creators! There easily about more than 40 budding 2nd year junior animators housed in this class alone!

Hard at work, full concentration, dedication and passion!

Nippon Kogakuin's students are required to come up with their own anime short or even mini series as a final year project! There are no computers in this particular room, meaning all animation taught and applied here, are strictly traditional as in manual!

Example of model sheets. The college also liases closely with reputed anime studios in Japan such as Gonzo and JC Studio to give their students additional exposure to the animation industry in Japan. Animators here are hired right after graduation and are highly in demand for the local industry...or so they say...

The sensei who teaches animation! (I forgot what his name is lol)

Sensei here is a part-time lecturer and also works as a professional animator in another studio. He's rather shy and declined to have his photo taken...so I sneakshot one from behind one of the aisle, much to the amusement of his students. They teased him quite a bit...especially the girls. ;)

Still, that did not stop one of our tenacious SingPoly girls to insist a shot of just him and her anyway and guess who was the photographer... XD

The class admitedlly was a lot more distracted and become livelier with our presence too.

Sensei showing how its done.

Our translator was unable to specifically translate the specialty of this gadget being unfamiliar with the animation production process. Since I trained a little on animation before at work, I was able to roughly comprehend what it does.

This is a special photo capture come scanner device, that snaps a shot of the storyboards or animation drawings directly into computer. Once that's done, sensei can playback the drawings to test and check the animation fluidity, or just playback a storyboard in animatic style! Cool!

And finally, me having a quick group photo shot with the fun and bubbly bunch of animator students of Nippon Kogakuin! Here's to Japan's anime industry!!! We looked forward to seeing new anime! URYAAAAA~!!!!
日本 の アニメタア!!!!

Part 2 - Day 1: Visit to Nippon Engineering College

Saturday, September 20, 2008

Note: You are reading Kengaku no Nikki - Part 2 - Day 1: Visit to Nippon Technical College. Please scroll down to read the earlier parts.

Our first stop on the programme was the Nippon Technical College in another area of Tokyo called Komata, which was about 40 minutes away from Shinjuku.

Yeah, sounds kind of boring at first but our real intention really,is to check out the Animation and Manga faculty in there! Yep, this college offers real professional courses in Japanese animation and creating manga. This should be interesting to see how its actually conducted here in Japan.

Sign that says Katayanagi Institute - Tokyo University of Technology Graduate School.

Katayanagi had several sister or subsidiary training colleges under its hat. Nippon Graduate school is one of them. I'm a little confuse as into whether Nippon Kogakuin is a graduate school, technical college or a junior college...all I do know is they offer courses for Japanese animation, manga, music and other creative production oriented subjects.

The coolest thing is about the design and art related fields here, is that they are grouped under one name called CREATORS or Ku-rie-ta-su. (クリエイタズ ) So if you are enrolled in manga or anime school here, you are known as a creator!

Our first stop, the creator's college building, located about 2 minutes away from the main campus. This is the building housing all the budding Japanese creators!

Also known as the Nippon Kogakuin Creator's College
(日本 工学院 クリエイタズ カレッジ)

Entrance to the Creator's Building showcasing some of the student's work. Now we know we are at the right place! Inside the building, there's also a mini gallery housing all the student's work, mostly anime and manga-inspired illustrations.

A close-up shot of one of the posters, protected and cared for inside a well-polished a glass cabinet. Yep, they take their IP pretty seriously around here lol

Rei having a quick pose. Everything here is 100% original stuff lol

The mini-gallery giving out hints of the future potential animes that will be hit our screens!

We are still at the ground floor by the way! Next on our tour, is the ANIMATION FACTORY! So stay tune!

Kengaku no Nikki Part 2 - Day 1 -

Note: You are reading Part 2 of Kengaku no Nikki. Please scroll down for Part 1. ^_^

View of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building, on the 25th Floor.

At the Shinjuku Washington hotel, all guests have 5 choices of restaurants to choose from, each serving a different choice of cuisine to suit your liking. Yeah, there's like Chinese, Western, French, authetic Japanese but sorry, no Malaysian nasi lemak, roti canai or mee goreng.

On the first day, I had my breakfast at the Manhattan Restaurant which had a buffet spread of both Japanese and Western cuisine. Being on the 25th floor, this restaurant undoubtedly the most popular choice among the hotel guests as it offers the best (partial) views of Shinjuku city.

View from top-down

Breakfast on the first day.

My stomach had trouble processing all that meat I had from the previous Korean BBQ dinner, so this morning I had some veggies to help with ease the protein. The baby tomatoes (not seen in picture) and corn were supreme in taste and sweetness.

Meiji Takanashi Yogurt

This is my favourite food in the whole of my Japan trip. Meiji yogurt...unflavoured. Absolutely the best yogurt I've ever tasted! The consistency and creamy texture, makes this yogurt a truly delicious and healthy treat especially for the health conscious. This would make ice-cream go out of business if only yogurts are in trend and fashion! After tasting this yogurt, I felt so cheated by the ones made locally back home, like what are they feeding us!?! lol

Kengaku Nikki-Part 1- Tokyo 1st Night-

Note: Due to the nature of blog postings, you will have to scroll down to read the earlier parts of the story.

Me and my SingPoly-Digital Creative Media friends.I'm the one in black on the right.

We arrived at Tokyo and headed straight for a Korean BBQ dinner at a restaurant in Ginza. Oh yeah, so it seemed a little disconcerting for me that on the first night in Japan, we had Korean food but we were all so hungry that it didn't bother us a bit. My friends from SingPoly college, turned out to be budding, aspiring computer graphics (CG) programmers, 3D animators/modellers, character designers; who are also aficionados of all things Japanese including anime and manga! Really a cool bunch!

It's smaller than it looks.

My room at the Shinjuku, Washington hotel. Small and comfy for one person and the bed is mine, ALL MINE! >_<

My little coffee set-up. I'm quite proud of it lol

I was warned that unlike the hotels here in Malaysia, Japanese hotels generally do not provide instant coffee in the hotel rooms. Being a coffee person, it was essential for me to bring the entire packet of Indocafe 3-in-1 instant coffee (some recommended Ipoh Kemaman) to ensure my survival for the next 5 early mornings here.

The Kawaii Otearai

No doubt, what I thought was the coolest feature in the whole hotel room was the toilet facilities. Compact, fully equipped and just enough room for a small, single person like myself. It also came with the famous only-in-Japan, sophisticated Japanese toilet seat complete with butt rinsing features.

The bath tub was somewhat square in shape and deep, specially designed with the o-furo, (Japaense style-bath) in mind for the locals.

Rei No Kengaku Nikki Special Report

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Hi there junior mangakas! In case you have been wondering where did I disappeared to for the whole of last week, I was on a study trip or kengaku as the Japanese call it. So, firstly, my most sincere apologies for those who has been trying to grab hold of me and couldn't respond to your queries as I was away!

Anyway, this has been an enriching trip for me and for that I would like to share it with all of you through the JMC blog. This special feature will be called, Rei No Kengaku Nikki (レイ の 見学 日記) of Rei's Field Trip Diary.

FIRST THINGS FIRST, just to assure everyone, that I'm safe back home, so feel free to shoot me your questions again. Some friendly reminders, for those who have not received your JMC Registration Confirmation form, do let us know immediately as well.

Till then, try to guess through these photos, where I had my kengaku during the last week.

Can you make a guess?

Looks familiar?

Getting obvious?

I was in TOKYO, Japan!

I was invited to participate in this special kengaku ANIMATION study-tour, organised by Sing Poly and made possible by my company Transtel Technology Sdn. Bhd. and Tabco Limited, Singapore.

Stay tune to learn about the crazy stuff I did in the Land of the Rising Sun of sushi, manga and anime!