My editor describes it as “jibun wo kezutte nanika wo tsukuru.”⁴
There’s essay manga and there’s story manga. Essay manga focuses less on the illustrations and more on the story.
Story manga, on the other hand, gives you more of a look into the story line and the story that the artist is telling.
I also do translation and marketing. My experience in marketing makes me think about who I would want to write my manga for if I were to do essay manga. What’s my audience? Who would actually read it?
I’m most interested in creating a good story manga, but I haven’t written off eventually doing an essay manga of my experiences. Either way, I want to put a genuine piece of myself in my work, which is harder said than done, especially because I don’t have a lot of references of people like me in manga. But as hard as it is, I’m finally at the point where I think I can finally start this journey.