Furutani-ke ch.3: MangaDex
Sometimes the thought scares me: 1) did Namori herself know that YuruYuri would be the manga of her whole life? (She had other works in 2011-12, but that was a long time ago, and Oomuro-ke is more like YuruYuri with an updated style and more peaceful characters… but more on that later.) 2) Are there many mangakas who write the same manga all their lives and always stay positive to please their audience? And 3) is it normal to dedicate your whole life to just one work (although in a rather broad sense: posters on the streets, various merch, and other drawings)?
It’s hard to say. Most likely, this is normal to some extent… It’s quite easy for me to imagine a programmer who would maintain an open source (and not only) project all his life and would be happy about it. [although this is only because the stories of those who hate the eternal support of their projects are less well known…] Perhaps the mangakas feel something similar (happy).
Returning to the first question, similarly, Did I know that Yuruyuri would become one of my all-time favorite anime?" The answer to this question is most understandable to me, but it doesn’t really look like the question about Namori, so the question is open.
off-topic
P.S. I usually use in places where there’s a lot more to say, but it doesn’t seem appropriate here…
P.S.S. Although I had a professor in university who, when discussing some concept, began to give an analogy from some another field, and then, to explain the analogy, he began to tell various stories. And this could go on up to 5-6 times. It was funny to see (or rather listen) how he would then unwind this stack in reverse xDD. Really cool guy.
P.S.S.S. in this case, I expanded the ellipsis…
Kaede is just so cute 🥰.
Namori probably did not know before hand. I think for mangaka it is quite normal to have one work that ends up either going for the rest of their career or at least pays enough to be able to take risks with other works. Like many arts it is very difficult to actually earn a decent amount money to live off. So once you hit it big, there is a massive incentive to capitalize on that hit. Especially with manga or anime, once people know and love the characters, making anything with those characters in it brings fans to it. If you make something completely new, it is a much bigger risk and can flop. I’m pretty sure studios and producers also see it this way. Getting the Oomuro-ke films produced was probably way easier than pitching them something with new characters and and a new name that no one yet knows. To give an analogy ( :) ) imagine writing a song under a new artists name versus making a cover of a popular song and uploading to youtube. Even if your new song is really good no one knows it, or types in the keywords that land them there. But the cover can be discovered more easily just by lifting along on the popularity of the original artist/song title.
As for knowing whether something will become something you like or not, I actively try not to do that. If I think I will really like something that kinda puts an expectation in the back of my head. I will watch it being biased in some way. If it doesn’t meet expectations I might be disappointed, whereas without the expectation I would think “huh pretty good”. I select anime that I likely will like in order to not waste too much time watching stuff I don’t like, but personally I never really think “oh this will become one of my favorites”.
Finally, my doubts are a bit dispelled: having one good work is a blessing, not a burden. Although it depends how to look at it. Having succes with only one title is still nice, relatively, you don’t have to worry about whether the audience will get new manga etc.
As for knowing whether something will become something you like or not, I actively try not to do that.
Yeah, unfortunetely or luckily, I know how it works. However, no matter how carefully I choose the series, it still turns out to be something completely new and unexpected for me (like Nichijou as CGDCT). I rather meant “like Namori didn’t knew YRYR will be her best work, equally I can’t be 100% sure would I like some title”.
