Amin Abbas

DUBAI: Written by Freshly Baked Manga, Purring Assassin is a new manga series where centuries ago the human population was turned into animal hybrids. The story focuses on Oliver Sato, a nobody who meets a mysterious woman named Angel and his life is turned upside down. He must fight against the Moriko Corps, a vast Rogues Gallery and the terrifying Ferals to reveal the truth about The Great Calamity. Oliver begins his adventure in uncovering the truth and being part of the STRAYS.

Freshly Baked Manga is founded by Tareq Younis and Mustafa Haidar. “We have been reading manga and watching anime for several years,” Younis told Arab News Japan. “I’m actually relatively new to the world of manga and anime, only really getting into it in 2019 thanks to Haidar. He introduced me to ‘Dragon Ball Z’ and it was game over for me. My favorite anime series have been and will always be ‘Cowboy Bebop’, ‘Naruto’, ‘Initial D’, and ‘Slam Dunk’.”

Haidar shared with Arab News Japan that he has been watching anime since the 1980s. “One of my earliest memories is watching Japanese anime such as ‘Treasure Island’ and ‘Grendizer’ back in the late 1980’s. Over the years, I have watched hundreds of shows and movies. My favorites were ‘GTO’, ‘Gangsta’, ‘Black Lagoon’, and definitely the big 3 (‘One Piece’, ‘Naruto, and ‘Bleach’) in the early 2000s.” 

The creators shared that they came up with the idea of Freshly Baked Manga in 2021. ” We wanted to make something akin to ‘One Piece’ and ‘Fairy Tail’, yet making it our own thing entirely,” Younis said. 

“For me, ‘Purring Assassin’ is my first ever project in the world of manga. It was a scary decision to take; manga readers and anime fans have a plethora of amazing stories to read, so starting a manga as two non-Japanese writers was going to be an insane uphill battle, but it was worth it nonetheless,” he added.

Reflecting further on the manga, Younis said that he was inspired by his cat. “Back in 2021, I had a pet cat named Ollie, and oddly enough whenever I would sit to watch anime (at the time ‘Naruto’), he would leave everything and sit next to me to watch it as well. So, I thought Ollie would make a cool character, then slowly I started to build and base him on some of my favorite characters like Sanji and Zenitsu, brave and kind yet an idiot when it comes to women. Then slowly I started basing characters on people I knew and slowly the very basic skeleton of the story was forming but I was far from anything I could call a story,” he said. 

“So, when one day Haidar and I were at the gym, we began to brainstorm and come up with more story plots, characters, storylines, backstories, etc. It was those gym sessions and the car rides to and from where an idea became ‘Purring Assassin’. The story wouldn’t happen without those sessions and Haidar and I bouncing ideas off each other,” he added.

About the challenges and experiences that they have faced during their work on the ‘Purring Assassin’ manga series, Younis said: “The first volume took us almost three years to release due to problems we faced with the artwork. We started with an artist we found on a Facebook group. We unfortunately agreed to pay half the fee for the book upfront and the second half upon completion. Unfortunately, after giving us the first chapter, she ghosted us, and we never got any more pages. So, we had to go back to the drawing board (literally) and start again. We found another artist on Facebook that drew a cover and then also proceeded to disappear. We were about to give up, then one day I found this artist on Fiverr. Her art looked amazing, but she didn’t have a lot of experience in fighting scenes but to all of our surprise, she was amazing.” 

“Luckily, she fell in love with the story and characters as well and got excited drawing as much as we were excited to see her artwork. Currently we are trying to publish the book physically but we’ve been having some setbacks with the publication company, but I believe those setbacks are behind us now and we should be announcing some surprises soon enough,” he added.

Regarding Freshly Baked Manga upcoming projects, Younis said, “I don’t want to give a lot away, but Haidar and I have a lot of projects pending that we’re trying to perfect, but the next project will be an exciting one and I won’t give away a lot but all I can say is get ready to sink your teeth into our new manga.”

About their recommendations for those who want to write superhero stories or create manga, Younis said, “Write characters you like; write a story you find enjoyable. I could get technical and tell you to create character arcs for your heroes and villains but at the end of the day, if you don’t love your characters and story, how will the readers? So that’s the most important thing when creating a manga or comic book. People come back for the interesting characters and intriguing story.” 

The English version of ‘Purring Assassin’ can be found online.