First of all, I would like to thank you for taking your time to come to read my website!
that means so much to me.

My Name is Alejandro Garcia Vidal.

What do I intend to do with this manga?

This Manga and it's characters are the most precious thing I have in this world, and I love them like my children.
My intention is not becoming the best mangaka or comic artist in the world, my intention is to draw some manga that makes people think about the meaning of this life.
I don't want to exploit my characters or the story and ending up becoming a product that only exists to please it's fans and that has no soul, think of this as a non-mainstream manga.

I have a story to tell you, a story that is already planned from it's beginning to it's end, so I am not going to change anything I originally planned.

Regarding working with other companies for a possible adaptations to movies, anime or videogames in the future, it's something that I would love to do.
But under a non-negotiable condition.
"The adaptation will only be done with my supervision during the entire project, and the final word will always be mine."

By having 100% control over my manga, I have complete freedom of expression and my work does not depend on the decisions of any editor or publisher.

In this privileged position, I can draw what I want and when I want.

However, on the other side of the coin, that means I don't have any company that can protect or promote my work.

But that does not mean that my work is unprotected from plagiarists!
As we know copyrights, I mean websites are constantly changed! because we are always updating them, so that is why instead of doing the copyright process every time I draw a new thing.
I protect my website domain name.

After clarifying the most important points, I would to like tell you my story.

I was born in Cali Valle del Cauca(Colombia) in January 25th of 1995.
My Manga Originally was named "El Sentimiento De la Vida" in Spanish, If we translated to English, it will be "The Sentiment Of Life".

I start drawing the first concept arts of The Sentiment of Life back in 2008, at the beginning were just kids drawings...
but more and more the story and the characters became deeper.

The Years passed... it was 2014 and I stopped drawing. I was struggling with my life, I find it meaningless, didn't know what to do, everyone around me was telling me to study to get one of these jobs where you are at the office working in something you don't like... working only for money, for paying house rent, living expenses etc... I was completely lost.

Without going out to have fun, with only one friend. I spend several hours in my room, playing videogames... Watching thousands of animation videos

Until someday my mother and I had a long and deep conversation about myself and what kind of person I want to became.
My mother and I start looking old pictures and remembering past times, doing so I found an old folder full of drawings.
We look at the drawings and I start remembering the story, and the characters that I was creating back in 2008, so i look at my Mom and I say "I want to draw a manga" I want to take this ideas I had seriously and became a professional manga artist.

My mom say to me "It's gonna be a really long and painful process but if this is your choice I'll support you".
I spend all 2014 and 2015 bringing all the pieces of these characters and ideas together, thinking a good storyline, making a script and a lot of characters design and world design.
At that moment I was getting interested in going to japan too, because I watch a lot of anime and I really liked the way the anime's represented japan.

I speak to my mom about going overseas, go to Japan. She didn't like the idea at the beginning, but I start searching, and I found a lot of people who went to Japan as a Student for learn Japanese.

I didn't know in the nightmare I was about to enter.

For go to Japan as a student you need to have several things prepared and one of those is Money!
Around 8000 dollars in your bank account. If you want that Japan immigration let you start applying for Student VISA.
Also you need about 12 years of Academic studies, and choose a school in Japan that accepts you.
Once you do so, you need to receive a postcard from the school to confirm you can study Japanese there.
You also need to choose were are you going to life while you study in Japan.
In my case I choose a Share house named "Borderless House". and a lot of things more that I don't want to remember about.

I though it was impossible, but my mother and I could complete the documents that I needed to go to Japan.
That's when my adventure begins.

In 2016 I started my crazy dream to become a Mangaka Artists in Japan, First I went to Japanese Language School for learn a bit of the Language and be able to translate my manga correctly. I study hard for 6 months.

But my Japanese did not improve as I wanted, having paid the Japanese language school only for six months, time was running out, so I talked to my Mother and she helped me with the payment of another six months.
Thanks to this, I could have more time to draw more and improve my Japanese, speaking again about My share house, it was located near the station of Uguisudani and every day I preferred to walk to my school that was located near the Iidabashi station, So I didn't have to pay for the train and it was a perfect opportunity to see the city.
It was 57 minutes walk everyday.

One day I tried a different route because I was tired of seeing the same roads and buildings for 6 months, so I chose another path. Almost arriving at my school, I found a manga editorial, and I was surprised... I remember that I stood looking at the building for 10 minutes without saying a word, and I knew that at some point I would have to make the leap and show my manga to some editorial, but the fear of not knowing how to express myself in Japanese was slowing me down.

I was really nervous, but I convince myself that is now or never, that I should at least receive some advice from the professionals.
It was july 8th of 2016 and I enter in the building, then I talked with the receptionist about showing my manga.
(Forgive me if I can't give you the name of the editorial, is because I don't remember.)
So they give me and appointment for the next week.
Finally the day of the appointment comes... I was really scared...I wasn't even prepare for show my manga.
But I knew that I needed to make this step forward. The Editor and his assistant comes in to the waiting room, I introduce myself and take my laptop out of the suitcase, then the editor starts reading it. After a few moments in silent the editor say me.

"Are you sure this manga fits with this editorial?".
When the guy says that, something inside me started laughing out of control. It turns out that the publisher was only for Shōjo manga!.
I didn't even know what was a Shojo manga.

It was really pathetic, that I didn't know about manga demographics. "Shounen, Shoujo, Seinen, and Josei."

After that embarrassing episode, I took the time to look at what kind of demographics age my manga fits in.
I decided it was the Seinen.
Once again I started looking for publishers that fit my profile, and I found "Kodansha Comics".
I told to myself that this time it would be okay, and I make a call to "Kodansha Comics", asking for an appointment with the editor.
It was july 22th of 2016 and I was standing in front of the Kodansha Comics building.



In the video I am saying
"Well here I am, standing in front of Kodansha, it is a huge building, wish me luck."
Once inside, I talked to the receptionist and she told me to wait for the editor on one of the sofas that were there.

The editor took 10 minutes to arrive, I was getting more and more nervous.
Finally he appeared, and guided me to the second floor, once there I showed him my manga.
After reading it, we talked for a while about the pages structures, the separation of the frames and the quality of the Japanese translation.
The translation I made for my manga was very bad, the Kanji looked very small and it was difficult to understand what was happening.

But the editor told me that I had a very good idea, and that he would like to see it better developed.
Then he gave me some advices for improve my drawing, my story board etc ...
After finishing the conversation I told him that I would see him again after I redone my manga.

Unfortunately I couldn't do that, things got more and more complicated in Japan. I had to start working to pay my house rent and food, I couldn't depend on my mother's money forever. So I start working in a Spanish restaurant called Alhambra.

While I was working, I began to realize that I was already a Mangaka, that I didn't need to work with a large publisher house, or be in Japan, I say to myself " I could be a mangaka even if I'm not in Japan".

"I just wanted that people read my story"

I don't need to change my manga just to please an editor, if I change things and modify the characters or the story ...

"It would stop being my story, the story I imagined"

That's something I would never forgive ... My manga is like a son.

Where have you seen that you need to raise a child as other people tell you?
You shape and raise your child, going the way you think is right.

I know there will be mistakes ... yes, of course there will be mistakes, but they are yours ... they are not the mistakes of others.

I didn't have to waste time trying to translate my manga into Japanese, because I would never master that language enough to make a correct translation.
It was easy for me to leave Japan ... go back to my country ... and continue there with my manga project, but something unexpected happened to me.

Around the end of July of 2016, I met up a Japanese girl and I liked very much. Time passed and I fell in love with her very quickly.

More and more our relationship became closer and closer, and I didn't want to leave Japan, because if I had to, everything would end with this girl.

So I thought things better and I decided that I would stay in Japan to be with her.
But things were very complicated, my visa expired in December of 2016 and everything would end.
For me all this "thing" about being in love was really new, it was too immature for even understand what I was getting into.
I managed to pay the Japanese school again for 6 months, which meant I could stay until June 2017.

I knew I could not continue with this situation, if I wanted to stay in Japan to be with her.
I needed to do something with my life.
So there I was... thinking about what to do ... I came to Japan to become a Mangaka, but I realized that I could be "Mangaka" by other means.

So what direction would my life take? I asked myself.
I was 22 years old, I still had time to do something with my future and study a career that would ensure me to get a job.
Around this time, I had a friend from Colombia, who was studying system engineering in Japan.
I was getting interested on that, but not in SE, but in front end engineer, the person who make websites, and study programming languages such as HTML5, CSS and Javascript .

At that moment it was nothing more than "curiosity".
That's when an idea occurred to me. study programming in a vocational school in Japan, learn how to make web pages, and also I will be able to make my own website, where I would publish my manga.

Vocational school in Japan are very expensive around 15,000 or more for one year. Fortunately I could find a Vocational schools where you learn programming, for a price not so high, but it was still expensive. about 880.000(8.300 dollars) yens or so.

You can't even imagine how hard and difficult it was to pay 880.000(8.300 dollars) yen twice, for the two years I studied in the vocational school.
Especially with the salary of a part-time job in Japan.
But I did it... I could graduate.

Here I am now in 2019 writing this to you my dear reader.
I just graduated a month ago,
and now I'm here... doing job hunting... looking for job...
It's amazing how life changes.
Now I did what I always wanted to do.
My own website.
The page you are reading now.

Soon I may have a job ... one of those boring jobs in an office, but I need money to survive ... to pay the bills ...
One day I want be able to devote myself to just drawing my manga, "THE SENTIMENT OF LIFE".
Stop working in boring jobs and do things I don't like.

Thank you for reading my story until the end.
I hope you enjoy reading my manga.
Please do not forget to share this website with your friends.
That would help me a lot to keep growing.

Update of February 9th, 2020.
This month begins with o lot of changes in my life.

I could get a job contract as full-time employee, doing something completely different.

Unfortunately if I want to survive and be able to pay the bills I need this job ... at least for the moment.

This 2020 will be a very difficult year.

Especially if I want to manage effectively the publication of new chapters and characters with my current status of a full-time employee.

But I tell you this.

I will do what I can to combine the work with my greatest passion, this manga.

Will let you people know any changes that I make!

• 1. Make a living off drawing only my manga.
• 2. Make a story that changes people's perspective of life.
• 3. Make deep characters with credible motivations.
• 4. Create a world that feels alive and evolves by itself.
• 5.Be able to do a video game based on the "THE SENTIMENT OF LIFE".
• 6.Get an anime adaptation of " THE SENTIMENT OF LIFE".
• 7. Have a strong fan base.
• 8. Work together with a group of talented people who are passionate about The Sentiment of Life manga, and help me to improved.