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flonnebonneSo a couple of years before Inoue Takehiko started releasing Slam Dunk, he wrote this 40-page short manga called "Piercing." The two main characters are named Ryota and Ayako, but they don't seem to be quite the same people as in SD. They're more like proto-characters.
I wouldn't say "Piercing" is all that interesting in itself, but it's cool to look back and see how far along Inoue has come along. I don't read his current manga Vagabond, but the art in that series is ridiculously detailed and precise, and I'm sure the story is well told.
Inoue is doing all sorts of mega-artsy things nowadays. Like the enormous washi paper making and the Antoni Gaudí exhibit and the whole ambassador to Spain thing...it's hard to believe this is the same guy who drew Akagi's butt in the first volume of Slam Dunk.
Maybe I'm selling the younger Inoue kind of short though. Now that I think about it, the end of SD is quite sombre in a lot of ways, and the art by the end of the series gets pretty damn realistic. In an interview, Inoue states that he pretty much had the ending of the series already planned out from the beginning, which makes me think that the guy was always serious about giving his story some narrative heft even when he was showering us with monkey jokes. What a guy.
Maybe I should actually read Vagabond one of these days. If only Inoue would hurry up and finish it.
I wouldn't say "Piercing" is all that interesting in itself, but it's cool to look back and see how far along Inoue has come along. I don't read his current manga Vagabond, but the art in that series is ridiculously detailed and precise, and I'm sure the story is well told.
Inoue is doing all sorts of mega-artsy things nowadays. Like the enormous washi paper making and the Antoni Gaudí exhibit and the whole ambassador to Spain thing...it's hard to believe this is the same guy who drew Akagi's butt in the first volume of Slam Dunk.
Maybe I'm selling the younger Inoue kind of short though. Now that I think about it, the end of SD is quite sombre in a lot of ways, and the art by the end of the series gets pretty damn realistic. In an interview, Inoue states that he pretty much had the ending of the series already planned out from the beginning, which makes me think that the guy was always serious about giving his story some narrative heft even when he was showering us with monkey jokes. What a guy.
Maybe I should actually read Vagabond one of these days. If only Inoue would hurry up and finish it.
