Besides writing and playing video games, reading has arguably been one of the biggest constants in my everyday life. No, I am not talking about school books, but about literature – real literature. This story is about how it all began.
As any other kid, the only books I used to read were moral stories disguised by fictional plots, such as Aesop’s Fables or Panchatantra. Honestly, I found these books quite boring, and they certainly did not make reading seem like an enjoyable endeavor.
My real breakthrough with reading came at the age of eight, when my friends introduced me to some well-known series, such as the Percy Jackson books or the classic Harry Potter novels. Back then, these books meant a lot to me, for it were them that single-handedly broadened my horizons. I mean, I would have never known so much about the scope of mythology had it not been for Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson. Similarly, my vocabulary would not have been half as good as it is today had I never read J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts series.
The thing about books is that they fuel our creativity. Personally, I was kind of short on creativity before I had started reading. In fact, I was perhaps the only student in class who had to spend hours thinking about what to write!
Books, especially novels, have also been a great help with my writing skills, so much so that at one point I was even using those skills to make some money. The creativity I got from my reading habits also made me a better digital artist. Given that I had never planned on being one in the first place, much less getting paid for my art at the age of fourteen, it is safe to say that books are the best thing that has happened to me! And the reason I say this is because I had never even thought of pursuing art until I had started reading manga.
In fact, manga is the reason why I love art. Each manga depicts a different level of creativity. It is not just about the impeccable artwork, but also about the addictive story lines. I remember my first manga was the Dragon Ball series created by Akira Toriyama. It was almost love at first sight – and with all due respect, that not had not been the case with novels. It was so fascinating to see how an artist had accommodated so many brutal fights and well-sketched characters in a 200-page manga! And, more than anything else, the art was simply a treat to behold. I learned a lot from it and even went on to develop my own style!
Today, I can proudly claim to have read about 100 manga series. Many people think that these comics are all about fighting, and, in all honesty, it does piss me off at times. I mean, come on, there are so many different manga out there. There are comic manga like One-Punch Man and JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, there are romance manga, there are suspense manga like Death Note and Tokyo Ghouls. And there are so many more genres of manga!
Anyways, to sum up, while novels have helped improve my writing and vocabulary, manga have made me a truly creative artist.
Thank you for taking the time to read this to the end!
A NOTE TO OUR READERS
To know more about Krish Nerurkar, make sure to check out his blog and Instagram handle.
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