New manga achieved!
It's called Otoyomegatari (Young Bride's Tale) and it's by Kaoru Mori. The story is okay, the handling of gender is weak, the characters are loveable, the research and historical accuracy is stunning, and the art...
The art...
The art is probably the most gorgeously and intensely detailed I have ever, EVER seen.
The mangaka does all the textile patterns freehand, ad-libbing them with no pencil guidelines.
Most of what I can say about her art comes back to "DIES AND IS DEAD", so I'm not going to elaborate. I'll let you see for yourselves.
Basically, I don't care a titch about the plot, which isn't the best (though the supercute characters make up for it), or the arrows (well, it is kind of set in a rather misogynistic time and place, but really), or any of the manga's other little flaws. I AM TOO BUSY ARTGASMING BECAUSE THE TEXTILES ARE SO VERY PRETTY. *____________*
Seriously! Once in a while, she'll insert a scene that (I swear) serves no purpose other than to show off her MAD DETAIL-ADDING SKILLZ. Chapter 10 involves so much embroidery, it's practically a sensory overload of solid artistic awesome.
Oh and it's set in Central Asia which hardly anything is set in. The costumes and culture are (so I hear) all spot on, but I think it's really just another excuse to draw LOTS AND LOTS OF REALLY PRETTY CLOTH. (Because Asian traditional/formal wear are some of the most lush and gorgeous I've known to exist. Russia, Arabia and the Middle East, Mongolia, India...and of course, China and Japan and Korea, though those seem to have a better representation in media. Now I want to set a story in Mongolia for no other reason than PRETTY TEXTILES OMG [and because I don't know any that are right now].)
The art...
The art is probably the most gorgeously and intensely detailed I have ever, EVER seen.
The mangaka does all the textile patterns freehand, ad-libbing them with no pencil guidelines.
Most of what I can say about her art comes back to "DIES AND IS DEAD", so I'm not going to elaborate. I'll let you see for yourselves.
Basically, I don't care a titch about the plot, which isn't the best (though the supercute characters make up for it), or the arrows (well, it is kind of set in a rather misogynistic time and place, but really), or any of the manga's other little flaws. I AM TOO BUSY ARTGASMING BECAUSE THE TEXTILES ARE SO VERY PRETTY. *____________*
Seriously! Once in a while, she'll insert a scene that (I swear) serves no purpose other than to show off her MAD DETAIL-ADDING SKILLZ. Chapter 10 involves so much embroidery, it's practically a sensory overload of solid artistic awesome.
Oh and it's set in Central Asia which hardly anything is set in. The costumes and culture are (so I hear) all spot on, but I think it's really just another excuse to draw LOTS AND LOTS OF REALLY PRETTY CLOTH. (Because Asian traditional/formal wear are some of the most lush and gorgeous I've known to exist. Russia, Arabia and the Middle East, Mongolia, India...and of course, China and Japan and Korea, though those seem to have a better representation in media. Now I want to set a story in Mongolia for no other reason than PRETTY TEXTILES OMG [and because I don't know any that are right now].)