About the Comic

A synopsis of Millennium

In this age of a confused young world, elders have felt the spirit-plane stirring, tempesting as it had not for centuries. The Senshuu, the embodiment of the dissention that comes every thousand years, is on the wake. Having known and anticipated this since his youngest years, a boy prepares to set out to meet with this Senshuu and set right what may go wrong . . .

The story, a massive twelve arcs (not counting the prologue and epilogue), unfolds from there. But why did I create this comic? What is it really all about? And why is it so long?

I'm not entirely sure how I came about being inspired to do this comic or how I managed to develop so many ideas for it, aside from my initial inspiration - discovering the meaning of my one main online alias in Japanese. (After I just made it up, too. My made-up names sounded Asian for a long time!) One translation of "Senshuu" is "last week", the more common one, I think; another is "thousand years," which I took to mean a millennium originally.

To this day, despite my planning, there are many directions this comic could take, because of its one "X" factor..."the Senshuu." Even I don't know how far it could go - but it's pretty far already. You'll discover the bulk of information about the world through the comic itself. Some of its general bits will be told about it outside the comic (in the About and Development sections, which houses a lot of nice info), but not much.

Around summer 2007, I realized my growing dislike for continuing the comic seriously with how it started. I didn't dislike the comic, but I couldn't keep going as I was - it was like stacking larger blocks on top of smaller ones. There wasn't a proper foundation. So, leaving the old archives online, I decided to start the comic over, with an actual refined script and concepts tied to future planning. Events still resemble the old comic, but now it is actually like a story, not just a gag comic full of chibis! I decided to show respect to the characters I had grown to love and redesigned them and everything relating to them, so that they seem more real. I do love this comic, and I want it done right.

This comic is majorly self-fulfilling, but I also gain joy when others enjoy it - especially when others enjoy something I've created, because it seems so strange to me sometimes that anyone else would like this (lol). Hopefully it'll bring some smiles, and maybe, eventually, some tears.

We'll just see how this goes, won't we?

Fantasy Adventure Manga, it's so overdone!

At least, some people seem to think so. There's really no problem with a genre being done many times, as long as it's overdone well. Of course, we've never seen such a thing happen, where it's able to be considered viably. I haven't honestly seen so many, and the few I read are pretty distinguishible from one another.

Why fantasy?

I personally like fantasy because it's all Back to Basics. No advanced technology - all the characters are living with the Earth, and barely anything is driven between them and it. (This is one of my big favors.) The thing that makes up for it is Elemental Magic, which is entirely different than technology, and can't be harnessed in our reality. But, in the same way people feel it's great that graphic design is slowly going back towards hand done things away from the computer, I feel that a natural fantasy setting is much more enriching and interesting than urban. After all, a lot of us are living urban, aren't we? I don't want to make an autobiography. And since fantasy Isn't Real, it really allows for your infinite creativity. A lot of fantasy follows certain patterns and guidelines (forests and magical beasts!), but that, my friends, is part of genre, and everything has genre.

On that note, I like manga because, well, I like manga. People emulate what they like. And I won't limit myself to that, as many people should not, but it is a great thing to be influenced by. Manga is all about creative interpretation, after all, and it is fairly cheapened, but then, you won't find many things that aren't these days.

The Secret Origins of Millennium

So, about a year ago, I think I rediscovered the origins of Millennium - because I sure as heck don't remember what spawned it, strangely. I found a few old, old, old, ooold sketches, and stuff for Pipe Dreams (the comic that went before Millennium but never started; too many different characters, not really Fantasy but sort of, no relations, no focus, no plot, all badly-drawn chibi), while going through boxes of old sketches.

I found a mostly empty sheet of paper that said:

"Name: Millennium
Characters:
Setting: Semi-ancient fictional land ("Magi-Ra")
Time: Turn of the Milennium
'You've been training hard to be a strong fighter, but maybe not enough. It may all be for naught, anyway. Do you know what's approaching soon? The Senshuu, boy! The turn of the Milennium! It always brings about [sudden] change. Prepare yourself, for anything may happen.'"

Notice how I misspelled Millennium 2 out of 3 times.
I remember writing that. It was during extreme boredom my early Senior year in high school (a very boring year indeed). I had something really cool for that blurb and forgot it. Ah, my memory holds strong.
There was also this tiny, ugly sketch of Ronou below in my chibi style then (which I was also using for Pipe Dreams) but with cooler, straighter fountain hair.
Really, though. Magi-Ra? Well, this was very vague. Very me, back then.
I think it'd have been cool if I'd started off with something like that blurb, though.