I can't believe someone made a manga about calligraphy. The main character grew up in Canada but had to move back to Japan right before he starts high school. (School year beings in April in Japan.) He is coerced into joining the school's calligraphy club and immediately breaks his arm! He then must recruit the girl who injured him into joining the club in order to meet the school quota.

I acquired the first seven volumes at a book sale and went through them very quickly. Last week I was at SFPL and lo and behold, they had the entire fourteen volumes even though I have never seen any of them in my previous visits. I checked out the final seven volumes and went through them in
couple of days.

This is highly educational but the characters are also very well developed
and it's never boring even though most of the time they are just writing. There's some romance between the boy and the girl that injured him but it's very subdued and they usually focus on history of calligraphy and different techniques that the students must muster.

And the author had to ask actual calligraphers (many are students) to come
up with the calligraphies that peppered the manga. I wonder how he could
ask someone to write substandard ones so the characters' progresses can be shown.

It took the author good nine years (published biweekly or less frequently
with sixteen pages per episode) tell two years' of these characters' lives.
But style is very clean and characters are almost always easy to identify.

And someone took the time to translate this into English...

http://www.mangareader.net/tomehane

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On 03/15/2017 05:21 PM, Kenneth M. Lin wrote:

Based on your recommendation or at least your remarks I
have begun to read this manga. It will take me months to catch
up though since I can no longer sit at the computer endlessly.
My legs get too stiff.

bliss

I can't believe someone made a manga about calligraphy. The main
character grew up in Canada but had to move back to Japan right before
he starts high school. (School year beings in April in Japan.) He is coerced into joining the school's calligraphy club and immediately
breaks his arm! He then must recruit the girl who injured him into
joining the club in order to meet the school quota.

I acquired the first seven volumes at a book sale and went through them
very quickly. Last week I was at SFPL and lo and behold, they had the
entire fourteen volumes even though I have never seen any of them in my previous visits. I checked out the final seven volumes and went through
them in couple of days.

I guess you mean in Japanese or Chinese?

This is highly educational but the characters are also very well
developed and it's never boring even though most of the time they are
just writing. There's some romance between the boy and the girl that
injured him but it's very subdued and they usually focus on history of calligraphy and different techniques that the students must muster.

And the author had to ask actual calligraphers (many are students) to
come up with the calligraphies that peppered the manga. I wonder how he could ask someone to write substandard ones so the characters'
progresses can be shown.

You start with the unskilled and maybe due the final
examples yourself?

It took the author good nine years (published biweekly or less
frequently with sixteen pages per episode) tell two years' of these characters' lives. But style is very clean and characters are almost
always easy to identify.

And someone took the time to translate this into English...

http://www.mangareader.net/tomehane

Thanks Kenneth.
bliss
--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

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On 03/15/2017 09:33 PM, Bobbie Sellers wrote:

On 03/15/2017 05:21 PM, Kenneth M. Lin wrote:

Based on your recommendation or at least your remarks I
have begun to read this manga. It will take me months to catch
up though since I can no longer sit at the computer endlessly.
My legs get too stiff.

bliss

I can't believe someone made a manga about calligraphy. The main
character grew up in Canada but had to move back to Japan right before
he starts high school. (School year beings in April in Japan.) He is
coerced into joining the school's calligraphy club and immediately
breaks his arm! He then must recruit the girl who injured him into
joining the club in order to meet the school quota.

I acquired the first seven volumes at a book sale and went through them
very quickly. Last week I was at SFPL and lo and behold, they had the
entire fourteen volumes even though I have never seen any of them in my
previous visits. I checked out the final seven volumes and went through
them in couple of days.

I guess you mean in Japanese or Chinese?

This is highly educational but the characters are also very well
developed and it's never boring even though most of the time they are
just writing. There's some romance between the boy and the girl that
injured him but it's very subdued and they usually focus on history of
calligraphy and different techniques that the students must muster.

And the author had to ask actual calligraphers (many are students) to
come up with the calligraphies that peppered the manga. I wonder how he
could ask someone to write substandard ones so the characters'
progresses can be shown.

You start with the unskilled and maybe due the final
examples yourself?

It took the author good nine years (published biweekly or less
frequently with sixteen pages per episode) tell two years' of these
characters' lives. But style is very clean and characters are almost
always easy to identify.

And someone took the time to translate this into English...

http://www.mangareader.net/tomehane

Thanks Kenneth.
bliss

Barely into this just a chapter or so and it is good stuff.
The protagonist is damaged when a Yawara-like girl tosses a masher
onto him. She is a runner up in a national Judo tourney but as
the boys point out Yawara was not at that tournament.

So a big thanks again Kenneth M. Lin.

Bliss

--
bliss dash SF 4 ever at dslextreme dot com

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