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The popularity of Japanese Manga comic books knows no boundaries of nation or colour. And it's time India gets its own set of Mangakas, feel three Indians residing in France

The popularity of Japanese Manga comic books knows no boundaries of nation or colour. And it's time India gets its own set of Mangakas, feel three Indians residing in France

Three second-generation Indians residing in France have decided it's time the mangakas of India unite. In what is probably a first-of-its-kind venture, Antoine Yagou, a 30 year-old engineer, Richard Yagou, a 25-year-old IT technician and Sagayaradjou Dessaints, a 26 year-old accountant have teamed up with Frenchman Steeve Asselin, a 28 year-old banker, to invite entries from Indian artists and manga comic lovers to create an Indian manga comic book.

Bakuman is a manga written by Tsugumi Ohba and illustrated by
Takeshi Obata

They share the details of their project Manga India with Sunday MiDDAY over email.

When did you think of this project?
This project has been in our heads for at least five years. As you can imagine, we read a lot mangas, manhwas (Korean mangas) and manhuas (Chinese mangas). Manga has become popular all over the world and it's reaching India with successful anime series like Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball. The idea only got stronger when we started reading Bakuman, a manga comic book in which two college mates dream of becoming mangakas and get published in Japan's famous Shonen Jump Magazine. We decided to do something similar. We know that there is a lot of talent in India, especially in the domain of art. If this project succeeds, we will have great satisfaction in knowing that we have brought out a new image of India.

How will you publish the Manga India comic book?
We are looking for talent that can draw manga for readers around the world. To that end, we will publish the comic book in multiple media such as the iPhone, the iPad, on the web, and we would love to publish it in a book format in multiple languages. As we speak, we are working on developing the different media. We will also be launching a manga contest. We haven't yet received any promising work, but we are confident that we soon will.

Is there any particular theme or topic that you want the entries to deal in?
Manga dabbles in all kinds of themes -- from sports, slice of life, action and humour to adventure. We aren't putting any restriction on what material we receive, but our favourite themes are comedy, action and adventure.