ҚАЗ 
RUS 
ENG 
When on May 24, 2020, the launch of the project “Dimash Manga” was announced, fans of the artist’s art are eager to find out: what was the starting point of the story, why the Manga genre was chosen, how they managed to convince Dimash to take part in this project as one of the characters? The editorial of @dk_media_world decided to find out answers to these and other questions asked by Dears directly from those who are at the origins of one of the most unusual projects related to the name of Dimash Kudaibergen.
NB. Manga is Japanese drawn black-and-white comic books in a variety of genres and topics. This type of literary and artistic art is extremely popular in Japan, where there are even Manga cafes where one can spend time reading such comic books, they are also widely represented in the United States, Europe and Asia.
Following the genre, the characters of our interview will appear in this interview in black and white. We are happy to introduce the Dimash Manga team in person.
Andrew B., Head of the project: “Dimash is a hero of our time.”
Looking for an answer to the question regarding how the project come to live led to Andrew B. By some signs, we realized that he is the real Dear: once he came across S. O. S. performed by Dimash on YouTube, Andrew could not stop listening to his songs until 5 am. He still has to restrain himself, otherwise Dimash would sing in his headphones 24 hours a day.
The idea that Dimash is the perfect manga character came to Andrew 2 days after he heard his songs for the first time. More detailed information about the artist’s art and personality, as well as about the Dears community, convinced Andrew that Dimash is a hero of our time for many people in the world, and he looks ideal for the Manga art style, which Andrew has long been fond of.
Andrew explained ” Why Manga?” to the editors @dk_media_world in this way:
“Manga is a very interesting genre in itself. In China, it is called “manhua”, in Korea-“manhwa”. Every year Manga becomes more and more popular, also in Russia. I have personally seen it read on the subway from smartphone screens many times. Our creative team loves to keep up with the times, and this format is promising in terms of transmitting information to readers.”
Having created the original manga concept with Dimash as a character, Andrew gathered a team of associates: “Working in a team, on the one hand, is difficult, but on the other is much more effective. By sharing responsibilities, we can fully devote ourselves to one part of the work, without wasting our energy on everything at once.”
As the mastermind of Dimash Manga, he “constantly shares new ideas with the team about the details of the script, the visual image of the characters, musical accompaniment of the project and follows every stage of the work, up to legal issues.”
He is also involved in promotion of the book and the D’R’S project as a whole. As the editorial of @dk_media_world found out, the idea to include in theManga plot the digital picture “Mona 1.618” and the parallel world also belongs to Andrew B.
NB. D’R’S is intended by the authors to mean ” Destiny..Range.. Sacrament”. These words can be attributed to the mystery of the voice and fate of Dimash, which many Dears would like to solve. “Parallel world” sounds intriguing, but it is not clear how it relates to the artist? The digital painting “Mona 1.618” is a mystery at all, although, as it turned out, it really exists and is displayed in the Museum of the city of Amsterdam.
Searching for answers leads to new questions. One of them: how will Dimash look like in Manga stories? The editorial @dk_media_world asked the mangaki, i.e.artists who draw Manga pictures.
Maria Pruger (Soubi), Leading Artist: “How to make Dimash a full-fledged manga character»
According to Andrew, Maria is responsible for the visual and stylistic part of Manga, creating a working storyboard and rendering the finished pages, especially the most complex scenes and frames. In tandem with Jan Kolesnikov (Jan.Co) she “leads the team of artists of the Manga D’R’S project, they work together with a team of talented assistants – illustrators.”
Jan acts as an editor, bringing together the ideas of Andrew and Maria. His task is “to make the story complete and logical, to complement it with bright details”. He is also the author of dialogues. We would be able to see the result of his work only after the release of the first Manga book, which is expected in early July. Our knowledge of the plot now is restricted to a general description of the background:
NB. “The events in the manga takes place shortly before Dimash’s concert in New York on December 10, 2019. The main character, the girl (the artist), and her friend are going to fly from Tokyo to attend this concert. Throughout the story, they have to solve the mystery of the birth of a mysterious digital painting and understand how to relate to her creatures from a parallel world. Dimash with his unique voice will come to our heroes for help in a dangerous fight with the enemy.”
We really hope that this backstory will develop into an exciting plot with an interesting ending. But how it will be realized in the project D’R’S’, we will find out soon.
Jan and Maria also developed images of the main characters-the artist and her friend, who are also fans of Dimash, since they are traveling from Tokyo to New York for his concert.
Regarding the visual image of Dimash: “The complex work was carried out in order to adapt his appearance to the world of Manga”.
So why Dimash in Manga looks slightly different?
As Maria explained to the editors of @dk_media_world: Manga “is another reality, so it is natural that the character will differ from his real prototype. And that just means that it will open up on the other side.” It is well known for a long time that Dimash is a versatile personality, and it seems that in Manga we will see some new facets of it.
The world of Dears is also multi-faceted, very diverse, speaking different languages, but equally understanding the language of Dimash’s music. How to combine the world of Manga with the world of Dears?
Leonid Vasiliev, marketing Director, deals with it in the Dimash Manga team: “the main concept of promotion is to create maximum convenient resources for the singer’s fans and Manga fans.”
His main concern is, first of all, the project website and its promotion. Leonid told the editors of @dk_media_world, what he views as his main task, and how he understands the specifics of work with such a diverse audience as Dears:
“While making the project site, there was an idea that it should meet the most modern requirements to achieve maximum speed and convenience, especially taking into account the worldwide geography of Dimash’s fans. Therefore, we make the site without templates, absolutely original: from creating a prototype and design to programming. Moreover, we have to create two sites to take into account the specifics of working with the Chinese audience».
In addition, Leonid is responsible for interacting with fan clubs, not only with Dimash’s fan clubs, but also with Manga fan clubs. According to him, a Dimash Manga fan club united both interests has already been founded. It includes representatives from some Asian countries.
“The main concept of promoting the project is to create maximum resources for fans of the singer and manga fans, where they can get information and communicate their reaction to our team“.
? How is the Dimash Manga project treated in Japan where this genre originates from? Editorial @dk_media_world asked about it some Japanese fans of Dimash and received the response:
“I personally think that this project is amazing.
Because Japan is the origin of the MANGA culture.
The popularity of Dimash will be increasing gradually in Japan.
Most of us don’t speak English, so the system needs to be understandable in Japanese to purchase the merchandise of D’R’S’” (Naoko Kurosaki).
Hidemaru Sato, a representative of the project in Japan and an expert in Japanese culture and Manga style, is responsible for spreading information about Manga among Japanese fans of this style of literature.
Hidemaru also interacts with the Japanese fan club of Dimash, and represents the interests of the project to the Japanese publishers. In addition, Hidemaru-San is actively involved in the content part of the project, as a connoisseur of Japanese culture and Manga style.
He told the editorial of @dk_media_world that ” Japanese, Chinese and Korean fans will be very happy to see Dimash in our work, as this genre is familiar and understandable to them. Especially since Manga will be released in these languages as well.”
Dimash as a manga character
Andrew B. replied to the question of editor of @dk_media_world, “how Dimash agreed to become a character in the fictional world of Manga”:
“Dimash and his wonderful family are people with a very diverse range of interests, and, of course, they were familiar with the manga genre.
Surely, the production center DimashAli has a lot of offers for cooperation in creating interesting project, but they has chosen our team, which is especially pleasant for us. We are very grateful for their trust!
As for Dimash’s own opinion on the manga release, we hope that he will tell us himself, after the Manga sales begin, and readers ‘ feedback will be received. We just wanted to see our favorite artist as often as possible, now from the pages of Manga. I am sure that his fans will agree with me.”
@dk_media_world was very interested in the question of whether the plot, appearance, and, most importantly, the features of character will be identified with a living person, Dimash? How much will the character differ from the prototype, and how exactly?
According to Andrew B., “all the details have been agreed with the DimashAli production center, both for the plot and the images in Manga. We believe that it is very important to value the artist’s contribution to art and protect their copyright as much as possible. Moreover, since we, as a team of manga authors, have a great responsibility to the fans of Dimash, we wanted to get the wishes for Manga from the original source, so that Dimash appeared in the most relevant image.
In the first issue of Manga D’R’S, Dimash will appear in the familiar image of the beloved singer, as he really is. At the same time, mysterious events will begin to occur around him and other manga characters, you will read more about it in the Manga release. The plot is exciting, we guarantee. As for the genre in the context of Manga, it is Seinen.”
NB. Seinen is a manga genre that tells about the formation of the main character and allows for romantic versions of the plot.
Development of the Dimash Manga project
At the request of the editorial @dk_media_world Andrew B. told how he views the development of the Dimash Manga project, and what can be expected for Dimash’s fan:
“First of all, after the release of the first part of Manga, we want to get feedback from fans of Dimash and fans of the genre around the world. Of course, we have ideas for the story development. In future releases, fans will be able to watch their favorite artist more often on the manga pages and follow his adventures. With the development of the story, we will see him not only as a singer and star, but also be able to get to know Dimash better, get to know him from different sides, his personal history.”
It sounds intriguing… There are still more questions than answers, but it won’t be long before we can learn more about Dimash’s adventures in the Manga world, and see how the character of the fiction differs from the real Dimash we know and love. Stay tuned!
The project was developed by the editorial board of DK Media World EFC
Dimash Manga official social media accounts:
Instagram: https://instagram.com/Dimash.Manga
Facebook: https://facebook.com/dimash.manga.drs/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DimashManga
YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/dimashmanga
Telegram: https://t.me/dimash_manga
ВКонтакте: https://vk.com/dimash.manga
Одноклассники: https://ok.ru/dimash.manga
Tik Tok: https://tiktok.com/@dimash.manga
