About the Mangaka

Chao Peng is well known within the Chinese fantasy circle, and joined the Tian Jin Creator World Comic Company in 1999. His ability to come up with original and fantastical stories and characters make him a unique author.

Weidong Chen is a editor and creator of comic strips and still active within the the Chinese comic arena.  He founded the Tian Jin Creator World Comic Company in 1995, and has to date created over 300 albums

(abbreviated from the information given in volume)

About the Manga

idealworld

Holly Hannah this was just mind blowingly AWESOME!!

Firstly a quick note, this is not a manhua as I initially thought, it is in fact a Chinese comic book. That aside, this is now on my official ‘Best Of All Time’ list, one of only six titles on there.

Art wise, it’s stunning on so many levels it’s hard for me to describe, and to do it justice.

I’m assuming Weidong did the art, and I have to say it’s mind blowing.The character designs are at times funny looking, and at others sexy looking. What I especially liked was the consistency, there were no changes at all in the designs as the volume progressed, a rare feat.

His use of colour is especially noteworthy, it makes the contrasting areas look truly amazing. The city is all grey and crowded, yet at the same time full of life and vibrant. His countryside areas are even better. I fell in love with his designs for the country and port straight away. There’s something fresh and alive about them.

The use of colouring in this volume is equally as mind blowing as the art and designs. Weidong clearly understands how to use colour properly. World of Quest came to mind when I was looking at this, and the use of colours are totally different. Quest was sharp, glossy and in your face (but equally good). Where as this series goes for a more soft, muted and fuzzy approach. It works really well, and as a result there are times the characters genuinely seem alive.

Story wise Chao lives up to the art spectacularly. While admittedly it feels a lot like Alice in Wonderland (chasing a rabbit, going down a hole, ending in a strange world), he makes the story his own.

All of the characters we have are alive, even the side cast feel real, which is unusual for a series. The story is also more about every day life and how we look at the world around us. I really love the way he incorporated real life lessons into the his story.

It flows really well, and if I’m honest I found myself relating to Ayou a great deal as I used to have that sort of negative outlook on life.

Yen did an amazing job with release. It is larger than your usual manga, in fact it’s more your normal comic book size. No guttering issues at all, and an excellent translation. The extras are equally awesome, we get a few pages of character sketches, but we’re also given the covers used on the French releases, which are truly stunning.

There were however two areas I found to have errors. Firstly, the leads name, according to everything I can find his name is Ayou. This is verified through the Yen Press website, and the synopsis on the back of the book. However inside the book for some reason his name becomes A You, which looks weird IMO. Also, there seems to be a page missing. In the extras section are the five cover pages for the French release, or that is what’s supposed to be there. It seems that there’s only four of them, volumes one, two, three and five. Volume four seems to be missing. I shot off an email when I read this and noticed this, but I’ve not had a reply yet. I’ll update the post as soon as I hear back

Update: I have just heard back from Kurt on this, and he explained it. The main leads name is in fact A You, so the Ayou on the site and synopsis on the cover are incorrect, however the inside use the correct spelling. Also the missing page is not missing, the volume four french cover is used as the cover for Yen Press’s release, so all covers are included.

This goes right to the top of my Essential Read list and I’m hoping we get to see some others by this duo at some point.

Where to Buy

Note: An Ideal World is not released until March 24th 2009

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