The Indian comic book based on the Japanese manga drawing style, Nirvana, has started its pre-booking for the pilot chapter of the manga on July 7, 2023.

The pre-booking will continue till July 19 and the manga will be officially released on July 20, 2023. You can purchase the manga from here.

The manga is published by Cosmics, a comic book publishing bootstrapped start-up.

The start-up is founded by Mohammad Shahbaz, whose unwavering passion for comics led him to establish the venture.

Nirvana is created by Abhirav (Insta: @abhirav_talks), a pen name taken up by Gaurav Verma and Abhishek Verma, two passionate 17-year-old students, avid writers, anime/manga enthusiasts, and anime YouTubers with a lifelong dream of creating manga.

Whereas, the art is done by Animesh (Insta: @crackerjack404) and letters by Ankit (Insta: @miskitious), making the entire team behind the Nirvana manga of Indian Origin.

Animesh is a talented 21-year-old student with a strong passion for art, who joined forces with Abhirav to bring Nirvana to life.

Whereas, Ankit Mishra is a dedicated 19-year-old student and passionate writer.

The pilot chapter of the manga is titled Karma and is an action-packed dark-fantasy supernatural adventure, that follows the story of an ordinary boy whose life takes an extraordinary turn.

The pilot chapter consists of a total of 68 pages and is of the genres: Action, Dark-Fantasy, Supernatural and Adventure, targeting the audience within the age group of 13 to 20, normally known as Shounen.

Chapter 1 of Nirvana is set to release this July in paperback format, and it will be available on various websites and in bookstores.

Although the comic book is inspired by Japanese manga, it has adopted the reading pattern of left to right which is common in India instead of right to left like the traditional manga writing and reading style.

The reason behind this change is that the authors want the manga to be enjoyed even by those who are not familiar with the Japanese manga reading style. For this, they also apologised to the otakus and weebs of India.

However, they also explain that manga isn’t just the reading orientation but the art and storytelling style. And it is the combination of the writing and art form that truly defines a manga.

They also claim many manga creators from outside Japan participate in Manga Creator Plus and Manga Competitions held in Japan, and they create their manga in a left-to-right format. Even within Japan, there are some manga created in a left-to-right order.

In addition to that, they also answered the obvious question, why is Nirvana called manga despite being created by Indians?

Why is Nirvana considered a manga, despite being made in India by Indian creators? Why not simply refer to it as a comic?

The authors say Nirvana is considered a manga because it embraces the artistic style, storytelling techniques, and cultural influences commonly associated with Japanese comics.

Although it is made in India by Indian creators, they choose to label it as Indian Manga to highlight its inspiration from Japanese manga.

They aim to make it more relatable and accessible to a wider audience and it makes marketing and other aspects easier. while also paying homage to the global influence of manga.

The authors also gave us comments regarding their and Nirvana‘s journey until now.

Abhishek and Gaurav (henceforth: Abhirav) say, they have been diligently working on this project since August 2021, alongside their talented friend Animesh, who is the artist of the manga, and Cosmics, the publisher.

Since their childhood, they nurtured a deep desire to create a comic book. However, their artistic abilities were a roadblock which led to primarily focus on crafting engaging stories.

This led them to discover anime and manga which inspired them to work on their creative writing, narrative depth, and artwork. Thus, the dream of creating a manga was born.

They also added, “In 2021, when they were 15 years old, a miraculous turn of events occurred. An acquaintance named Ankit approached them with an opportunity to write a story for a burgeoning comic book publisher called ‘Cosmics’.

The founder of Cosmics, Md. Shahbaz, was intrigued by the prospect of exploring the potential of an Indian Manga in the market and gave his approval.

Accompanied by the remarkable artistic skills of Animesh, the journey of Nirvana the manga began.

However, due to our academic commitments, the project’s completion took more than 1.5 years.“

They also wanted to mention special gratitude towards Pranav Tayde (Insta: @_pranav_editz_) for his exceptional editing skills in editing the captivating cover of our manga and producing stunning posts for Abhirav.

They also extend their gratitude to Sourabh Jana (Insta: @beast_fantasy) for his support throughout our journey. A big shoutout to Nithin (Insta: @nao._senpai) for his invaluable contribution to crafting the initial character designs for Nirvana.

They are immensely grateful to Joyraj Sarmah (Insta: @pop_culture.zone) for his valuable assistance in refining the final dialogues.

Last but not least, a special thanks to Ujjwal Bhargav (Insta: @omega_art_26) for his help.

The manga is said to be the first of its kind in the entire country of India. Albeit, there are several Indian artists who replicate the art style of Japanese manga this is the first time a pilot is being launched.

The manga has also received good traction on social media pages as well and fans have responded well to it.

Source: Press Release