Feedback Feedback wanted on story concept

[EnnuiWolf]

It's been a couple of days since I joined this forum, and in that time, I've been browsing the Amateur Manga forum and looking at what people usually wrote about here. One trend I spotted was that most of the story ideas that people had for manga revolved around fantasy themes and action themes. Not that I had a problem with that, but I noticed a general lack of ideas pitching for lighter content such as Romantic Comedies or Sports/ Activity related School-Life manga, something bordering on Bakuman or Ouran HSHC.

I had an idea for a manga that sparked off an rp I did over on DeviantArt, but I wanted some critiquing and help in polishing it up.

It goes like this:

Yukina Kamiya starts off her first year of high school looking to focus on her studies, like any other normal student. She hides the fact that she is a dedicated and talented violinist by hiding her instrument out in the back of the school, where she goes to play after school hours. However, one day, a guy follows her and overhears her playing and then enlists her as the new violinist and concertmistress of the Orchestra Club.

Originally opposed due to an incident in grade school when she was harassed by older kids for being good, she is dragged into joining temporarily and finds that the Orchestra at her school is a new age orchestra, that practices with newer, modern, pop music but performs old age classical music.

While there, she meets a host of characters with differing talent and personalities, and ends up as the target of affection of four boys.

This story is a romantic comedy/ harem with a focus on music.

 

[Lumaria]

This seems to fall in with something closer to shojo. Which I don't mind as much.


I think the premise is good but the motive may need more convincing. People making fun of someone for playing violin? That is strange.

 

[EnnuiWolf]

Honestly, I feel like there's a lack of slice-of-life and shoujo manga. I also don't mind the shonen/ action/ fantasy manga out there, I in fact love it, but it feels like everything is that nowadays. What happened to all the good Bakuman-esque stories? It was honestly one of the reasons I decided to put this weird plotline online and try to see how many people respond to it.

I've been working on that idea and what I've come up with is that the protagonist gets picked on for being better than the rest. Imagine a violin class where one student keeps getting praised and picks up on the lessons the fastest. Wouldn't that irritate anybody? Especially if the one ahead of them is like two or three years their junior? One would believe that they are just showing off, and this may just lead to bullying.

Your thoughts?

 

[Lumaria]

Honestly, I feel like there's a lack of slice-of-life and shoujo manga. I also don't mind the shonen/ action/ fantasy manga out there, I in fact love it, but it feels like everything is that nowadays. What happened to all the good Bakuman-esque stories? It was honestly one of the reasons I decided to put this weird plotline online and try to see how many people respond to it.

I've been working on that idea and what I've come up with is that the protagonist gets picked on for being better than the rest. Imagine a violin class where one student keeps getting praised and picks up on the lessons the fastest. Wouldn't that irritate anybody? Especially if the one ahead of them is like two or three years their junior? One would believe that they are just showing off, and this may just lead to bullying.

Your thoughts?

There are several slice of life manga out there but geared toward a far older audience and not as popular bwcuase they have such a weird perspective. For example: femme fatale is a manga largely focused on not understanding the characters. I think in the artist secretly wanted it to be yaoi just by how obscure the characters were.

But I digress. I think the reasons for her not playing violin in public needs to be grounded more or make it seem like its geared toward very very specific group of people. It just doesn't make sense to me. If it's a problem of jealousy, then all she has to do is push her talents where there is no competition or where older kids don't notice.

Maybe if it was just one single event where it had impacted her just enough to never play in public then that would work. It would also have to be the very thing she needs to work on throughout the series.

 

[EnnuiWolf]

Then I guess that makes sense.

As I'm developing the story, one thought I've been thinking about is including her brother in it, and exploring a kind of relationship where even though she's more capable than him, is subconsciously afraid of surpassing him. So when she's confronted by people telling her she's too good, she feels like the ideal world, in which her brother is the best and she is ranked below him, is severely threatened. My mother was a psychologist, and she once told me about this sort of thing happening, it apparently even happened to me. Because of constant comparison between me and my cousin, I could never really excel in academics, even though I was way more suited to getting good grades. However, this is only an example that I'm drawing out some influence from

 

[Lumaria]

I think the problem is selling it as a normal circumstance rather than a unique situation that only effects her. I just don't get it. I've been compared constantly in my life...but that never stopped me from excelling. Mainly because I believed that no matter what I did the other will be in top