Tuesday, February 8, 2011

Fight On!! : Kazuya Minekura Tribute

Bus Gamer (c) Kazuya Minekura

Amongst all the power figures in the manga industry, one of my all time hero(ine) is no other than Kazuya Minekura-sensei. I first fell in love with her copic works when I read her classic series, Gensoumaden Saiyuki and Saiyuki Reload. She very well inspired me to pick up copics instead of any other medium and with every new illustration she makes, it propels me to push my skills further than I ever believed they could go.

I often frequent her blog, Nitro to glimpse at the products she makes since I can't get them here and all and I haven't get the chance to go there in a while. So I updated myself with all the entries and to my dismay, read about her bone tumor surgery at the End December.

My heart just....collapsed for her. My kanji isn't too good so I had to use and online translator for alot of the kanjis. She talked in detail about her tumour and what I got to translate was that her bone tumour was on the right side of her face which caused her whole right side to collapse. That and at least 3 long paragraphs of her description of her illness was more than enough to just tear up.

Even through all these, her main concern was her work. She was worried about not being up to par and mentions that there are other people who have gone through worse and still was able to do more. She also apologized to the readers that was looking forward to her manga in the magazines weekly and that she'd disappoint them for a while since she's not allowed to overstrain herself. Even with that she managed to complete 8 designs for the life size cutout and 4 limited edition (detailed) stickers of Saiyuki Gaiden characters.

More than a month later, she updates her blog with saying that the surgery was a success but she'll take some time to get back on track where her work is concerned but she was touched by all the support she received before her surgery and after. It seems a large region of her fans got together and did more than a thousand cranes and sent it to the editorial department of the magazine where she works and they sent it straight to her hospital room. She even commented that the doctors and nurses said that, that was the most cranes they've seen for one person ever. haha. She thanked all the people that worked together for that and those that chartered her back and forth from the hospitals so she could work.

Since I'm pretty late in doing anything I though I should at least do a tribute for her. I mean, I can't imagine if she didn't make the surgery. I think I'd have been devastated and probably go through a huge art block (yikes!). So I acually wanted to draw for her but I'm pretty tied up with work I can't dismiss (.____.;;) so I thought why not post up a cover that I did with my fellow Mass D members last week? (*・∀・)/♡



So here's the Mass D (Iwashi, Me and Oyabin)'s tribute to Kazuya Minekura-sensei. This is for inspiring us through our childhood in Life and on paper with your strong will, determination and wonderful art. So here's the insert song for the Gensoumaden Saiyuki animation series: "Open Up Your Mind" by Mirai.

(sorry in advance fo the pitchiness gaiz haha (` q `;;) we're still learning~) Hope you enjoy it anyhow!

Have an awesome day gaiz!!! ♪(ノ´∀`*)ノ

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