Séléna Mercier and Marie Desnoyer, 22, are all smiles to talk about the turning point that their life as young designers has just taken: the prospect of being published by Vega-Dupuis, one of the major French manga publishers.
This award obtained at the end of a competition, the two 5th year students of the International School of Manga and Animation (Eima) based in Toulouse won it with the strength of their pencil, with a project of about fifty pages mixing fiction and great history.
"We had to do research on the Toulouse of the 1900s", recalls Marie.
"And we came across the Toulouse Heritage Library on shelves full of books on the Toulouse Resistance, testimonies, etc. We got lost in it and said to ourselves: + But that's too good! + And that's how the Alexis network was born."
Together, they developed the script, mixing love and adventure, Marie devoting herself to the sets, Séléna to the costumes, both seeking to be as close as possible to historical reality, while remaining within the codes of Japanese comics.
Students Séléna Mercier and Marie Desnoyer from the International School of Manga and Animation (Eima), are working on their first manga "Réseau Alexis", on February 9, 2023 in Toulouse © Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP
From now on, it remains to expand, enrich and complicate this original manga so that it is definitively ready for publication, within a few months.
"Marginals"
Since childhood, Séléna and Marie have grown up with manga until they want to make it their profession.
They also experienced the spectacular rise of the genre.
"We see it today in college, it's about + Naruto +, + One Piece +, + Demon Slayer + (manga bestsellers, editor's note). As soon as you like manga, wow! It's popular", describes Séléna.
"When we released a manga in the playground, we were among the marginalized," she recalls.
Students Séléna Mercier and Marie Desnoyer from the International School of Manga and Animation (Eima), are working on their first manga "Réseau Alexis", on February 9, 2023 in Toulouse © Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP
The success of manga in France is indeed phenomenal: in ten years, the French market, second in the world behind Japan, has quadrupled.
About one in seven books bought in France in 2022 was a manga, with growth that should continue given the young age of readers, according to a study presented at the last comic book festival in Angoulême.
While she was a visual arts teacher in middle school and a fan of comics, Claire Pélier, the founder of Eima, also fell in love with manga.
She started with workshops for her students, then developed a dedicated leisure school, "Toulouse manga", before creating Eima in 2016, which is with the Human Academy, an offshoot of a Japanese group based in Angoulême, l one of the only two professional schools dedicated to this style in France.
The idea was to "avoid going to an art school with a degree that is useless, it was to ensure that young artists have the means to live from their work", underlines Aedan Dujardin, deputy director of the young school.
Students from the International School of Manga and Animation (Eima), February 9, 2023 in Toulouse © Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP
To concoct her course, Claire Pélier, 38 years old today, teamed up with a Japanese mangaka, Chiharu Nakashima, also author of a thesis on teaching manga to foreigners, and took care to probe as closely as possible the needs of specialist publishers.
"Immense pride"
After six years of existence, a hundred students roam the halls and stairs of the institution, richly decorated with the drawings of its graduates, in a building with a brick facade, a few dozen meters from the Garonne.
Among the first winners of the Eima, eight have signed or are in the process of doing so with major publishing houses, details the founder.
Others work in animation studios, in video games, or are freelance illustrators.
Students from the International School of Manga and Animation (Eima), February 9, 2023 in Toulouse © Valentine CHAPUIS / AFP
"Seventy-five percent of our students find work in their branch in the year following their training", assures Claire Pélier for whom the new success of Marie and Séléna is "an immense pride, the consecration of everything what we've been doing for years."
"Let the publishers come and draw from our students who have not even left yet, (...), that's exactly what we were aiming for, the project is quite successful," she rejoices.
© 2023 AFP