Tag: Lessons
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The Romance of the Sword
In the age of the gun, the romance of the sword lingers in pop culture. From wuxia novels to martial arts flicks, heroic fantasy tales and stories of sword and sorcery, people enjoy stories of blademasters cleaving their way through hordes of enemies. On first glance, this seems strange. These stories hardly have any bearing on modern…
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Lessons from the Dungeon Samurai Kickstarter
Having achieved 110.5% of its funding goal, the Kickstarter campaign of Dungeon Samurai was a great success. I am grateful to all backers and everyone who have helped with the campaign, and am now preparing the manuscript for publication. Looking back on the campaign, I’ve 5 lessons to share. 1. The Campaign Begins Before It Begins The…
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Lessons from the Freelance Life
I didn’t choose the freelance life. The freelance life chose me. Previously I wrote about my education and employment aspects, and lack thereof. The cold reality was that I was caught in a vicious cycle. No one in my industry wanted to hire fresh graduates with my specific skillsets, only people with several years of experience.…
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Thoughts on the Isekai Genre
Fantasy writers need to solve two problems. They need to create a believable fantasy world significantly different from ours that allows for fantasy elements. But this world and the people who live in it can’t be so fantastic that they alienate their audience. The isekai story offers a neat solution. ‘Isekai’ is Japanese for ‘other…
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Anime Analysis: Demi-chan wa Kataritai
Cute monster girls doing cute things. It’s tempting to summarise Demi-chan wa Kataritai (Interviews with Monster Girls) with that line, but the anime puts a fresh spin on an otherwise well-worn trope. An adaptation of the manga of the same name, Demi-chan wa Kataritai is a slice of life anime that posits the existence of…
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5 Writing Lessons from Manga
As a child, I couldn’t understand the appeal of manga. To me, they were simply a different kind of comic book, and comics held little appeal to me. Then, in my teens, English-translated anime took off in Singapore. Almost all of them were adaptations of Japanese manga. I pursued the source material, and found Ghost…