A 25 year old manga artist from Texas called rem won the Morning International Manga Competition put on by Morning magazine and judged by Japanese publisher Kodansha. She collaborated with a writer going by the name of Bikkuri and part of their prize was to appear in the October issue of Morning 2 magazine which was published last week. You can still read the other entries via the competition website but the link for rem's work, called "Kage no Matsuri", now only takes you to a site where you can buy the magazine. Her story, which has no dialogue, has the following synopsis: "an oni (demon) girl lives in a decrepit shrine somewhere in Japan. One day, she meets a young man and invites him to a night-long festival in which monsters have fun dancing". Although rem has been published in America - she does the artwork for TOKYOPOP's "Vampire Kisses" - she describes the experience of appearing in Japan for the first time as "playing in the major leagues".
