haha, I just made this topic like two seconds before you lol. I'll go delete mine

I would have expected something like this YEARS ago.

Do you guys remember the DDR manga that Charlie posted a while ago?

It... it was pretty bad. This looks like the art style here is a little more professional, but the content has even less potential.

They did, it was called:
http://10kcommotion.com/



Got a link?

For how much I loved 10k Commotion, I could see myself getting interested in another DDR-themed comic.

here's the difference between 10k Commotion and Stepmania: The manga.

And yes I'm going to assume here.


10k commotion is about the Arcade community. The people who have been there and back in terms on dance rhythm games.

Stepmania: the manga I'm assuming right now is going to be based around the keyboard community which..........oh lord in heaven

*facepalm*

I agree with your analysis on 10k, but with the new Manga, I'm not so sure. I would agree that, being called StepMania, you would assume it'd follow the keyboard players, but if you read the short character bio on the page, it describes her as "running off to the arcade to play" and that her friends work at an arcade and are "veteran" players. I have a feeling that it will include much more arcade socializing than just playing at home on a PC.

This assume of course that they are playing on either a hacked cabinet or a fictional Stepmania cabinet. I'm guessing the later.

Edit: I know that this is Manga University's production and all, but I wish they would've focused on the US scene like they did in 10k, rather than some fictional schoolgirls who'll likely transform with a magic pen before they can successfully AAA a song.

Keby, you knew this was coming...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQ5ziNOtoMU

GAWATIC POWWWWUAAAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


That's the thing though. If it has a focus towards the arcade scene, why is it called Stepmania: the manga?

Perhaps they wanted to avoid the Konami lawyers?

Even if they do use Stepmania as a generic representation of a dance game in the arcades, I'm worried that without specific references to songs, they won't be able to hold the interest of the real DDR community.

e.ample: In 10k, they would reference songs like Matsurai Japan, Spin the Disk, HVAM, Candy * and many more. I can't speak for everyone who read it, but I know it gave me a closer connection to the story and the players because I could directly understand how good they were, even if they are fictional.

For instance, when Pict and Dynamite both AAA Spin the Disk in the first chapter, it gives you a rough idea of how good they are compared to other players. Back then, AAAs were still rather rare, and only the best players had more than a handful.

Suko, Keby, discovolante, BLueSS,

Thank you guys for the constructive feedback! There has been a lot of anticipation and questions from the StepMania community about how our manga is going to turn out (and yes, it is a real manga drawn by a Japanese artist) and we want to make sure to keep the US and International StepMania/Dance/Rhythm gaming community involved throughout the production with comments and feedback on our website, and forums like PNW. The comic is for fans and it is by fans -- the artist is a rhythm gamer and the concept is being worked on by people with years of experience making songs/stepcharts, playing in tournaments, building pads and controllers etc.

As far as the story, the characters in the manga play on a fictitious arcade version of StepMania as well as on their home PCs/hacked consoles and anywhere else you'd find it in real life. We hope that in letting the characters play in the arcades and at home will allow us to touch on more than just keyboard-play, and also get more manga fans outside the gaming community playing dancing games.

How we mention different songs/steps/difficulties in the manga is one of the aspects of the project that we are very excited about.  When possible we'd like to feature original stepfiles and songs created by the StepMania/simfile community and feature their name and files in the issues where they are mentioned!

For once I don't even know where to start.

Well 
I feel a lot better about this now. Thank you for coming on here and posting about this.

No problem Keby
Feel free to keep giving us your feedback here or on our blog:
http://www.howtodrawmanga.com/blog

Nah, I'd really like to apologize for being a judgmental asshole.
From what you posted previously, this sounds like its going to be the complete opposite of what I was thinking. Which is very good. I'll keep my hopes up ^_^

I wish Stepmania was a real anime...

@MangaUniversity

The fact that you are here, talking with our community, and are earnestly interested in our opinions, gives me great confidence in your project.

Roxor did this when creating the In the Groove series, and they certainly won over the hearts of many fans this way.

Please keep up the great work. I look forward to seeing this thing become reality.

Wow, Manga University is so nice I almost feel bad for criticizing the idea, dang. Good luck with the comic guys, I'll definitely check it out when it's released. 

Stepmania: The Manga has BSODed Zeppy.  Impressive.

First page is up at www.stepmaniathemanga.com

The quality of it looks good, but with only one page posted so far, I can't really analyze it too much. I'm going to wait until a few more pages get published to get a better feel for this project.