Baring your soul to make art, and making art to bare your soul. Kunigei is a love letter to artistic expression as a whole and to filmmaking specifically. When reduced to basics, to plotline might not sound much extraordinary. We have the classic talent and hard work themes, we have the classic rivalry dynamics and the classic working to achieve your dreams structure. But the execution here and how the topics are tackled is something extraordinary. It’s not just soul of the characters and their motivation being put on display there, the author himself is peeking through the pages as the concept of art itself isexamined. On a meta level reading this manga feels a bit like reading an essay, and I mean that wholly complimentary.

A very strong point is how grounded the whole manga is. These feel like real people and behave like someone with their character would. Of course, this doesn’t mean the story is boring, as while being realistic they still are eccentric artists, so you can expect clashes and musings regarding that topic a lot. After all, that is the central theme here. Additionally, they face challenges not just regarding their attitude towards art, but also challenges on very much technical level. It really shines through how well the whole filmmaking process was researched for this manga, as you can expect to be made familiar with specific issues, techniques and all that a young filmmaker will encounter on their path in this industry. The art creation is not just a vehicle for the story to air out the human drama and social conflict, it is irreplaceable piece of the story itself that could not be changed for just any other genre of art creation for the characters to dance around with their story arcs. Both the technical side and the character side are masterfully interwoven into each other with great care and they are a delight to read through.

There was one plot point for which at the time I was reading it I did not like where the story is going, but in retrospective it worked and the finale and conclusion would not have such impact or maybe not work at all without this turn, so I can’t do much but the concede this point to the author.

This being the author’s first serialized manga is an absurd notion, as it reads entirely like it was made by a seasoned veteran of the industry. Kunigei absolutely needs more recognition.