List Item: Read half of the 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die
Progress: 87/501
Title: Even A Monkey Can Draw Manga
Creator(s): Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma
Year: 1990-91
Country: Japan
I am writing this in the hope that, in the week prior to this being published, I have been able to do something akin to what I normally do during the run up to the Oscars – even the only things I end up seeing are because they were created by Netflix or Amazon. Anyway, that’s over five months away and I just finished reading this rather interesting manga.
From the title, I was pretty much expecting the manga equivalent of Understanding Comics – completely missing the entry in the 1001 book that listed this as a comedy. In a way I wasn’t completely off the mark when i thought this would be instructional. After all, this goes through many different genres and sub-genres of manga, with the intent of the authors explaining the way to make a success out of them.
Of course, it’s all written heavily tongue-in-cheek with a lot of nudity gags – because that’s what they say sells. It’s pretty over the top with recurring jokes that get more and more ridiculous as they go on. The problem is that, rather quickly, they run out of major genres to cover and you end up with sections on obscure things like ‘mahjong manga’. By this point the whole thing has run its course, but it made for an entertaining read whilst it lasted.
Before I Kick 