Koimoku
Koimoku (こいもく?, Misspelled as Cimoc in the English subtitle) is a Japanese-Korean manga series written by Dall-Young Lim and illustrated by Hae-Won Lee, the former who is known for scripting the Korean manhwa Unbalance Unbalance and Japanese manga Black God and Freezing. The manga started serialization in Kill Time Communications' seinen manga magazine Comic Valkyrie in its March 2011 issue, published on January 27, 2011.[1] The first volume was released on July 27, 2011, with two volumes currently available as of October 27, 2011. The series revolves around Kouta Inamine, a young manga artist whose streak of failiure takes a drastic turn when he is hired by a famous B-rated editor. The tagline for the series is "Story of Cartoonist and True Love".
Plot
Kouta Inamine is a young man with dreams of becoming a professional manga artist, but his constant mistakes has caused him to be fired from almost every manga magazine in Tokyo. After being fired from another manga magazine, he believes his life to be over. However, his life takes a drastic turn when he finds out that his next door neighbor, Hinata Sawanoguchi, is revealed to be a famous editor for a B-rated manga magazine, and Hinata recruits him for her manga magazine. The story focuses on the process of making and serializing manga, and the ongoing romantic relationship between Hinata and Kouta.
Characters
Main characters
- Kouta Inamine (稲峰 耕太, Inamine Kōta?)
- A 20 year-old man and a manga artist who moved to Tokyo two years prior to fulfill his lifelong dream of becoming a successful manga author, but is occasionally fired from each manga magazine. He is then recruited to Comic Splash by his next door neighbor Hinata after he was fired from Comic Heat. He is revealed to be a virgin, and as a result has poor experience with women. It is revealed by Hinata in chapter 5 that Kouta is a "trigger-type" artist, an artist who can produce amazing results if something stimulates them (sexual or otherwise). This ability was first shown after Kouta saw Mika Fujiwara's breasts once, which inspired him to draw more buxom women for his manga.[2] He was influenced to become a manga artist since childhood, and was influenced by Ozma's works.
- Hinata Sawanoguchi (沢野口 日向, Sawanoguchi Hinata?)
- Kouta's busty next door neighbor and the editor-in-chief of Comic Splash (コミックスプラッシュ, Komikku Spurasshu?), a B-rated seinen manga magazine. She shows two sides to herself: a ditzy woman outside of work and a serious editor at work. Prior to recruiting Kouta, Hinata gave Jiro Mineryu, one of Kouta's superiors, his big break at Comic Splash before he became a ten million seller. The rumors of Hinata's sexual appetite started when she managed Mineryu's debut work "Farewell, Tokyo". The rumors also are based on the fact that Hinata pokes excessively into the private lives of her signed manga artists. Hinata also has a reputation as a novice eater who pushes her artists to the utmost extreme and burning most of them out for every star she produces, and making them change their style to make it more market-friendly instead of having more fidelity to their personal tastes.
- It is revealed in chapter 8 that she had her career ruined following an incident with Ozma, a famous manga author who has a reputation for destroying editors, but she assented to it. At the time, she was always called in by top magazines and stole promising newbies, afterwards she worked at lower grade magazines.[3]
- Miki Fujiwara (藤原 美樹, Fujiwara Miki?)
- A bespectacled girl who works at Comfy's, a dating club, where she assumes a kogal/ganguro appearance. Originally called by Kouta to improve his experience with women, she takes an interest in Kouta's manga upon seeing his unfinished manuscript, even proclaiming herself to be his "number-one fan".
- Chika Sakomizu (迫水 千佳, Sakomizu Chika?)
- A girl hired by Hinata as Kouta's assistant. Despite her childlike appearance, she is actually 20 years old and currently attending college. She has a fiery temper and dislikes being called a little girl. Initially Kouta was skeptical about her expertise in manga, but after seeing her superb artwork, he eventually hires her as his assistant. She is nicknamed "Chi-chan" by Hinata, and appears to be acquainted with her. She has a habit of kicking Kouta in the groin whenever he touches her hands or sees her underwear.
Comic Heat staff
- Tohru Asahina (朝比奈 徹, Asahina Tōru?)
- An editorial staff member of the shōnen manga magazine Comic Heat (コミックヒート, Komikku Hīto?) and Kouta's former colleague.
- Sayaka Jumonji (十文字 さやか, Jūmonji Sayaka?)
- The editor-in-chief of Comic Heat and Tohru's superior. She is Hinata's rival who disapproves of her methods of molding manga artists, believing that they should be successful in their own right and that there were a number of artists under her wing that failed to be successful, which is negatively affecting the manga industry. It is revealed that she once worked with Hinata in the past for a manga magazine, though the main reason for her breaking up with Hinata remains unknown.[4] Despite her rivalry, she still has some degree of respect for Hinata, as she refers to her by the senpai honorific. She can also be quite intimidating, especially towards Tohru.
- Jiro Mineryu (峰龍 二郎, Mineryū Jirō?)
- Nicknamed "Mine", he is a critically acclaimed author who can sell ten million copies of his manga once it hits print, earning him a spot in the Ten-Million Club (千万クラブ, Senman Kurabu?). He briefly hired Kouta as an assistant, but quickly fired him following an ink spill which ruined one of his pages, claiming he does not have what it takes to be a manga author (he admits later on that he is a bit hotheaded when it comes to manga) and explaining to him the realities of the manga industry. It is revealed by Izumi that he was a former employee of Comic Splash, and was Hinata's disciple. Hinata gave Mine his big break on his debut manga "Farewell, Tokyo" which sold 30 million copies, which in turn led to the spread of numerous rumors by her competitors. It is later revealed that Hinata (who was a manager at the time as well as his editor) had collaborated with him on his debut work.
- Yū Takashima
Comic Splash staff
- Izumi Honda (Honda Izumi)
- A member of Comic Splash's editing apartment.
Other characters
- Ozma (オズマ, Ozuma?, Stylized as OZMA[2])
- Ozma is the pen name of a famous manga artist who draws a variety of manga in various genres and copious amounts. Initially, Asahina believes Ozma to be a pen name of a group of artists due to the diversity and amount of manga produced. However, Sayaka Jumonji knows Ozma to be a single manga artist. Ozma's works and common elements inspired Kouta Inamine to be a manga artist himself.
- Kagami
- A famous novelist who teamed up with Mineryu at Comic Heat to produce an award-winning manga, which has been selected to be adapted into a TV drama. She is a fan of Mineryu's "Farewell, Tokyo", which she read and inspired her since, at the time, she was in a slump after her first hit at the age of 20, similar to Mineryu's age at the time.
Volumes
Written by Korean manhwa author Dall-Young Lim and illustrated by Hae-Won Lee, Koimoku began serialization in Kill Time Communications' seinen manga magazine Comic Valkyrie in its March 2011 issue, published on January 27, 2011.[1] The first volume was released on July 27, 2011,[5] with a total of two volumes available as October 27, 2011 under KTC's Valkyrie Comics imprint..[6] In South Korea, it is published by Artlim Media, and it is serialized in Comic GT.
| No. |
Release date |
ISBN |
| 01 |
July 27, 2011[5] |
ISBN 978-4-7992-0107-7 |
|
|
| 02 |
October 27, 2011[6] |
ISBN 978-4-7992-0152-7 |
|
|
Chapters not in tankōbon format
References
External links