I recall watching the Comic Party anime a long time ago. It was about this guy who wanted to become the greatest doujinshi artist in the world! Or something like that. Recently I got me some Comipa manga from CPM, so here comes a review!
Story:
The story of Comic Party generally involves a wacky cast of characters, most of which are involved in some way with the doujinshi (fan made manga) industry. Kazuki is the aspiring doujinshi artist. Mizuki is his poor girlfriend who’s been pulled into the world of Comipa unwillingly. Yuu is Kazuki’s mentor of sorts (and slavedriver). Subaru is the moe doujinshi artist who can’t sell anything. There’s also other random characters like the guy who says “My Brother!” and the green-haired doujinshi idol.
While the anime had an actual story, this version of the Comic Party manga is just a bunch of short stories involving the characters. I think the Tokyopop version of Comipa is the linear narrative one. I’m sure DiGi Kerot can enlighten me on this.
Analysis:
There are 18 sections and 165 pages. Doing the math, that makes each section only about 10 pages long. Not much for an actual plot. It’s a good thing that I had seen the anime and sort of knew the characters; I think would’ve been majorly confused. The manga pretty much assumes you know all about Comic Party, and throws you into the universe with little backstory.
The interesting part about this book is that each short story was drawn by an actual doujinshi artist. It’s sorta meta thinking about doujinshi artists drawing doujinshi artists drawing doujinshi… Whoa…
Some of the stories were pretty funny, and some were boring as hell. Some of the art was really good, and some looked, well, amateurish. It was a mixed bag for sure. It felt like I was reading slightly extended 4koma, some of which had no punchline.
Conclusion:
If you’re totally into Comic Party, I think this manga would be a safe bet. Though you’d probably already have it if you were that into Comipa. Otherwise, I’d suggest you check out the anime or the other manga before reading this. Even then, this manga is sorta hard to digest.
Many thanks to Central Park Media for sending me a review copy of Comic Party Volume 1: Party Time!
3 replies on “Comic Party Vol. 1: Party Time! – Manga Review”
“Kazuki is the aspiring doujinshi artist. Kazuki is his poor girlfriend who’s been pulled into the world of Comipa unwillingly.”
You have a typo there. It’s Mizuki who is the girlfriend. Also Taishi is just hilarious and he;s just so awesome in both the game and anime.
Oops. Yay for proofreading!
You mean Kazuki can’t be in a relationship with himself? Facebook doesn’t let me be in a relationship with myself either…
I tried reading this however many years ago when it it first came out but I couldn’t finish it. I guess its OK for fans to see their favorite characters done by different doujinshi artists, but without any plot or intelligible humor it doesn’t feel like much of anything.
Someone really into the doujin culture in Japan, who knows these artists, would get the most out of this.