Damnit, I knew this was the 'end' of the manga, but I didn't know it was cancelled due to allegations of tracing until I saw that tag added. I actually managed to track down volume 1 and went to revisit chapters 6 and 6.5, then saw the tracing tag. Such a shame, it's a really great story.

The biggest disappointment I can recall in yuri history. ;_;

I miss it so.

This manga is truly one of the best.
I wanna ask, what means tag "tracing"? I tried to find answer on internet, but it didn't satisfy me. (Thank you Phyis for anwering me)

last edited at Mar 17, 2013 8:24PM

Some of his images were traced (i.e. copied with slight adjustments) from popular photographs. Caused a minor scandal which effectively killed the series.

And seriously, I never got the hype surrounding Prism.

That sucks, both that the artist felt the need to resort to tracing (although i gather tracing backgrounds from photos happens a lot in the industry) and the fact that such a good story is never going to continue.

Tracing backgrounds is one thing, tracing entire characters/scenes is another.

Tracing backgrounds is one thing, tracing entire characters/scenes is another.

I personally don't see what is so bad about tracing characters/scenes. How is different then tracing backgrounds?

Such a shame, I really really loved this manga.

Had so much potential.

Tracing characters/scenes is basically stealing the work of others and calling it your own. Besides which, if you're an artist you're expected to create art. If you're tracing, you're not actually doing what you're hired to do. Which is why fans of American comics complain about Greg Land so much.

I wonder how widespread it is throughout the entire manga industry. I suspect it could be possibly more widespread than we think, and not an issue until someone get blatantly caught, like this case. The same thing happened to D.Gray-man author Katsura Hoshino, and they just put her series on hiatus. Granted when it came back it was never the same / as good.

I have seen the pictures where they line up the traces and they do match pretty closely. However, the artist can't have traced the entire series and the art is pretty consistently good otherwise. I think it came down to laziness, or saving time taking shortcuts to hit deadlines.

I really enjoyed the series, it's really a shame. At least it ended at a good enough spot.

why whats wrong with this manga??..why it was stopped? :( it was nice though :(

The mangaka got in trouble for tracing his drawings. Obviously, you can't trace someone else's photos and call them your own so Prism was discontinued... In retrospect it explains why that manga was so life-like, especially the hands, but the faces looked all the same.

Well it's not like every pose and detail was traced, just a number of them. Shou's a great artist, he's just one who....got really lazy it seems. Shame.

Oh, I know. It's just that to me it felt like he was only drawing one face type for all his characters and then on the flip side his hands were super real-looking. I felt like it was an imbalance of ability and I picked up on it quickly after reading a couple chapters... It really is a shame he was lazy though. I enjoyed it all the same.

sad. i like this manga =(

Oh no! I really enjoyed this manga and was hoping for more. :(
Does anyone have any recommendations for other manga similar to Prism?

I Agree it was a very good manga. I just verified it personally; Prism disappears from the Japanese Tsubomi after volume 17.

last edited at Apr 1, 2013 5:26AM

there are mangas where the tracing is the key of the entire drawing style, just 2 name: gantz and sun-ken rock.

anyway, i think only who loves to draw can comprend the all "tracing" stuff, it's not simple like it seems,
with 2 persons tracing the same photo, the results are completely different,
and beside mangas are not only art, they have to tell a story in the best way possible, using what can be used.
my english doesn't allow me to better explain myself, however i like prism a lot and i was very sad for the censure (becouse i think it was that)

Well… I guess … only those who can draw and love to do it would find tracing reprehensible. I on the other hand… let’s just say that my most “advanced” sketch is a rectangle. Although this means nothing, because even I noticed the lack of consistency in the panels. Some of them where very detailed and felt almost alive but others were like “meh”. Anyway! I’m very sad that it was cancelled. I like Prism a lot, and it made me laugh (or at least in more than one occasion it succeeded in putting a big grin on my face).

last edited at Apr 12, 2013 2:10AM

Well… I guess … only those who can draw and love to do it would find tracing reprehensible.

Meh, if it's something you're actively pursuing, of course you'd be a bit miffed if someone already in your industry of choice was cheating. Plus, stealing?

That said, Shou's a pretty good artist, there's plenty of evidence to support that. I would guess, if it's something he does irregularly, he was probably just running on a tight deadline. I've heard of companies dealing with art generally doing that kind of thing.

Those curious about what he was accused of tracing:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2012-06-01/prism-yuri-manga-put-on-hold-due-to-similiarities-to-photos

Is it possible he was tracing a lot more than that? Sure, but inconsistency isn't really all that uncommon, ya know?

last edited at Apr 12, 2013 2:25PM

Is it really absolutely certain that it was traced? The article says that he admitted using it for reference. I know some artists that are so good at copying something that it looks like it was traced. When looking at the fact that it's a photograph(s) that he's accused of tracing, and the similarities between them, I could fully believe that he is just exceptional at copying/sketching a work. My grandmother is a painter, and I have seen her do copies of a work to show me style, and she is also rather remarkable at making a copy.

If he wasn't technically laying paper over it and tracing it, is it still reprehensible? I can imagine really liking a human model's pose and drawing it - that is essentially what we do with models. The only issue would be copying someone's work - but is it really the same to draw something from a photograph as it is to reprint the photograph as your own?

I'm not saying that it wasn't wrong to publish something clearly taking from another person's work, without payment due to the model. But I don't think it's so clear-cut as "He traced it, none of his work is legitimate". I suggest that he may not have traced it, and if he is exceptional at copying he really ought to have used a physical model to avoid this situation. I think the ability to make a replica is an ability in its own right, and I can't even do that.

The only way to know for sure would be to watch him create the manga. Talented artists can be good at copying an image over without tracing it, like you said, so that's the only way to know definitively. The issue is that he used well-known photographs as his reference and then didn't change them much. If he'd used his own photographs this mess could have been avoided the same way using physical models would of. He was just too lazy to photograph his own people, and might have thought the quality of his drawings would be better when using professional photos. To me he seems like a lazy perfectionist who happens to be good at drawing.

last edited at Apr 12, 2013 3:07PM

Is it really absolutely certain that it was traced?

No way to know for sure.

If he wasn't technically laying paper over it and tracing it, is it still reprehensible?

Yes. Copyright laws, in general, are pretty clear about this. If you take another individual's work (a photo, a drawing, whatever) and use it for your own work, you are required to give them credit. A feasible comparison might be paraphrasing the words of an academic journal. It is good etiquette to cite them as a source - the fact you did not quote them directly has no effect on this.

I actually wanted to say something about referencing but didn't really have the time earlier. Using photos for reference is widespread in any artistic field. For whatever reason, this is sometimes heavily frowned upon by fans (though it is commonly noted that "beautiful backgrounds" for cartoons are drawn from research photos), but there is no way to know if an artist ever uses outside materials. Unless of course they really sloppily steal other people's photos...

But I don't think it's so clear-cut as "He traced it, none of his work is legitimate".

100% agreement there.

He was just too lazy to photograph his own people, and might have thought the quality of his drawings would be better when using professional photos.

Kinda just reinforces my feeling that it was something that just happened one or a few times, rather than something he consciously did/does in general.

@OrangePekoe, Thanks for the link to the article. It kind of gives me some "hope". It says the manga is on "hiatus while the magazine's editorial department investigates". Perhaps we will get to see the story continue when all gets cleared.

The difference, though, is that it's widely accepted that you can use photos to draw backgrounds and such, but that if you are going to use photos, you need to make sure to only use ones that you've taken yourself.

All in all, if you don't want to shoot yourself in the foot, you'll want to either change up the pose or some aspects of a photo you're referencing if it's not yours (instead of copying it pretty much 1:1) or use solely your own photos when using references. As it seems, fans are pretty keen on finding out whether or not something seems copied. I'm still a fan of the story of Prism, and I was pretty sad that it abruptly stalled (if not officially "canceled") because of this scandal.

(I think the main reasoning is that if an artist is shown to have copied once, there's no telling if they won't do it again. Its probably not the idea that every single one of their illustrations are copied, but that they might resort to it again if they're proven to have done it the first time. Once something happens once, there's always the creeping possibility that it can happen again since it's been proven possible.)

last edited at Apr 13, 2013 7:33AM