Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Omani artist Zainab Al Lawati, known as Taiga Blush, released her self-published dark fantasy manga ‘Decalcomania 0202’  in 2022, which was highly praised by Middle Eastern manga fans. 

Al Lawati is a full-time freelance artist and has been giving anime and manga art courses since 2014. In 2015, she won the best design award at the Middle East Film and Comic Con in Dubai.

She started her journey working on illustrating children’s books, character designing, manga style artworks, doing workshops around the GCC region, and owning her own online manga workshop.

Her first major achievement was a tutorial book called “Draw Chibi with Taiga Blush,” which was first published in 2016. She met the producer of ‘One Piece,’ Shinji Shimizu, at the Misk Global Forum 2017 and was part of the Saudi team that won the prize for winning best stage design for KOF XIV.

In 2022, the artist officially released ‘Decalcomania 0202.’ She told Arab News Japan that it was always her dream to release the manga. “I always knew that one day I would write a story for my original character Taiga and her comrades, so it wasn’t a surprise when I officially started taking ‘Decalcomania0202’ seriously.”

She started planning and writing her original character, Taiga, back in 2015, whose story resembles Alice in Wonderland. “Taiga doesn’t remember anything except the storing feeling within her of finding home, but poor Taiga is unaware of the melancholy events yet absurd fate is waiting for her,” she said.

“Since the story is fantasy and Zetalice (the setting) is a place where nothing in it makes sense, the foundation and design took longer than I thought; everything needed special care and attention, including research and case studies regarding the topics that will be involved in my story as well as designing the environment and outfits for the characters and just working on this part alone took me two years because I wasn’t working on it daily but whenever I had time,” she added. 

In 2018, Al Lawati started drawing the storyboard and made minor changes to the story. It was released in November of 2022. The manga is for those who are interested in mystery, mythology, and dark fantasy, according to the artist. 

“I started drawing the manga when I almost had zero practice in drawing it. I’ve always been hesitant to practice drawing manga pages. I believed I wasn’t ready so I focused more on drawing anime-style illustrations instead, in hopes that one day I will overcome the situation and actually start learning how manga pages are done,” she said, reflecting on the challenges she faced while creating ‘Decalcomania 0202.’

The feedback from the readers has been overall positive. “I’m so grateful and happy for that,” she told Arab News Japan. “The most highlighted one is that a lot of my readers had a very humble first impression of the story and art, but after reading it, they realized that it is so deep in its messages, meanings, and story, even with its events, it holds so much more than what they thought it would be from its summary only.” 

“People have been praising my art in the manga too; they are impressed by its smallest details because I took my time in drawing each panel with no hurry. Many of them liked Taiga, which I wasn’t expecting, but their reason was that they saluted me for writing the story in such a way that I sometimes made the reader feel like it’s not Taiga who’s going through all those events, but it’s them so it was kind of personal and it touched a lonely space in their hearts; they thought it didn’t exist,” she added.

After writing the manga in English, Al Lawati got it translated into English in order to reach a wider audience. “There are not so many self-published manga stories out there, and this alone makes it unique because I worked on my manga from scratch, selling it myself, and distributing it.”

“When you read ‘Decalcomania 0202′, you have to pay attention to the art and give it as much time as you give to reading the story and texts because my art style in manga itself holds messages and secrets that will make the readers analysis of the story and solving the mystery a bit easier. All in all, what I think makes it different from other stories is the message behind Taiga’s journey in Zetalice. I’m sure a lot of my readers ended up relating to at least one of the messages that the manga delivers,” she added. 

Additionally, Al Lawati shared with Arab News Japan that the manga will have a sequel. “The story will most likely explain how Taiga got to this condition and what made her end up alone without her family,” she said. 

For those interested in creating manga, Al Lawati recommends enjoying the process. “I understand it’s hard, especially for perfectionists like me…but it’s all worth it,” she said. 

The manga can be found on the artist’s Instagram.