Hello, manga fans!

Who here hasn't played DDR? I'm horrible at it but even I have given it a go at the local arcade. I remember not realizing that you don't need to immediately step off a square after hitting it... It was quite embarrassing when I tried to place my feet in between the squares after every beat... Anyway, enough about my tragic past!

If you fancy intense DDR-like dancing action, check out Rhysmyth. This book has something for everyone as it does a great job blending action, romance, comedy and anything else you can think of into one highly entertaining book. Lincy and Anthony are young creators and they really make this story, about a naive girl and her introduction to a new world, come to life.

As an editor, what first caught my eye about this series is the concept of "battle dancing"! Merging music and sport together to create something completely original is so ambitious, I just wanted to be a part of it. And Lincy's art is very cute and she can do both the quiet and actions scenes very well. She also worked incredibly hard to create a dozen awesome bonus pages at the end of the book that includes 4-koma (Japanese-style four-panel comedy strips) and an inside look at the creation of the book. The only question left now is, are you ready to RHYSMYTH?!

~Alexis Kirsch, Editor

Check out the Rhysmyth Web site for more information about the series and its creators!

Welcome to America's newest and most popular sport: Rhysmyth! Featuring one-on-one dance battles atop a hi-tech glass court grid, when the music hits, you and your opponent dance across a digital minefield for the glory of being the most stylish Rhysmyther!

High school student Elena is looking for a little something extra to beef up her college applications. When she is thrust into the fast-paced world of Rhysmyth, she begins to get her groove on. But is Elena truly ready for the rivalry...and romance!

Anthony Andora - Writer
Anthony was born in Las Vegas but has lived in Southern California his entire life. He has experienced more moments of pure embarassment than should be allowed the average human being (just ask him). Such expertise and an appetite to read anything and everything in sight have provided him with the motivation to write. After graduating from UCLA too soon in 2004, Anthony decided to engage in a year-long respite filled with late-night video game sessions and mid-afternoon awakenings. He crossed paths with artistic collaborator Lincy Chan during his routine internet search for original comic art. He has no idea where life will take him and is mildly frightened but wholly excited by the myriad possibilities.

Lincy Chan - Artist
Lincy was born in Hong Kong and moved to the United States in 1994. She has lived in the world of anime and manga from the moment she learned to read. She persevered through years of school by scribbling and doodling on all her textbooks and notebooks. She entered college as an Accounting major in the feeble attempt to appease "the powers that be." Her passion got the best of her and she eventually switched majors. Though being a manga-influenced artist made her years at art school a bit on the unbearable side, she graduated with a BFA from SJSU in 2004. Since then she has been working as a freelance illustrator. She has entered the RSoM Contest three times and made the top 20 her last try. She received a strange e-mail from someone claiming to be a writer in April 2005 who now happens to be the co-creator of Rhysmyth. Lincy is following her dream and hopes to one day be able to draw comics for a living.

Her motto is "never give up."

Check out the Rhysmyth Web site for more information about Lincy and Anthony!

Elena Bohdana, Sophomore
The oldest child and only daughter in a loving and supportive family, Elena can best be described as two parts spunk, one part tomboy and one part klutz.  She lacks a thorough knowledge of current pop-culture and a keen fashion sense.  Though raised to believe in herself, Elena can lose confidence when she feels in over her head.

Wahzee Zameel, Junior
The only child of an overbearing father and a gentle kind-hearted mother, Wahzee is an excellent student-athlete driven by an unrelenting pursuit of perfection. Depending on his location he can come off as different people.
On the Rhysmyth court he is a whirling dervish of passion and emotion.  Off the Rhysmyth court he is usually calm, cool and serious.  In the school hallways he is known as an anti-bully.  A loner by nature, his best friend is his dog Zee.

Diocel Manibusan, Junior
Originally from Silicon Valley, Diocel moved up north with his mother after his engineer father lost his job. In private school his whole life, Diocel enjoys the newness of public school. After he transfers to Highwall High School he joins the Rhysmyth team with the intention of becoming team captain. With his family struggling financially he will need to do all he can to earn a full college scholarship. Intelligent, charismatic, charming--he's a lady-killer and knows it. To his credit he is a gentleman by all accounts.

Taylor Hamilton, Sophomore
A constant glory-hound who excels at everything, privileged only child Taylor has always known the glowing admiration of others.  Followed by groupies and admirers, Taylor considers most people to be on a lower rung of the social ladder. Despite her attitude, Taylor is not cruel-hearted or evil; it's just that the world has given her everything and she's used to it. She finally found a rival when she failed to impress Elena with her 'amazing' fashion sense in middle school.

Tina Johnson, Sophomore
Tina, raised by her two older sisters, exhibits level-headed composure at all times and balances out the rash behavior of her best friend and surrogate little sister Elena. She is patient and kind though not without a sarcastic sense of humor. Blessed with a keen eye and womanly confidence, Tina is pretty much a grown-up stuck in high school.

What is Rhysmyth? 
A dancing game. A puzzle game. A virtual canvas for athlete-artists to paint on with the brush of their bodies. Two players battle against each other atop a glass court divided into 56 equal squares in an amalgam of HSD and puzzle. Random squares light up which players must make physical contact with. The object of the game is to keep on dancing. When a player runs out of squares to dance on, he loses. Non-competition matches have an adjustable time-limit, usually the duration of a song. If the song time runs out, the player with the most squares activated wins.

Check out the Rhysmyth Web site for more information about the characters!

Review by Scott Campbell on Active Anime

Welcome to America’s newest and most popular sport: Rhysmyth! Featuring one-on-one dance battles atop a hi-tech glass court grid, when the music hits, you and your opponent dance across a digital minefield for the glory of being the most stylish Rhysmyther. Thata’s the basic idea behind the focus of attention in this new OEL manag from writer Anthony Anddra and artist Lincy Chan. For anyone that has ever played DDR, this manga will cover subjects and ideas that may be well known to you already. It’s a more complicated form of Dance Dance Revolution, plus the lives and conflicts of the players involved – drama and gaming, who could have guessed?

The story revolves around a high school girl named Elena and her need to succeed and be accepted by her peers. At the beginning of the story, she’s looking for a little something extra to beef up her college applications with something physical, but ends up falling on her face for most of what she tries out for. Then she discovers Rhysmyth (or Rhysmyth discovers her – either way). As she’s thrust into this fast-paced world of dancing and moving, she begins to get the hang of it and impresses her friends and foes alike. Rhysmyth shines in its ability to present a game/sport as the main focus, but never forgets to give characters personalities, conflicts and relationships. The game is at the forefront of most of these characters minds, but of course, all the other day-to-day life things happen too, making it a complete story with multiple focuses. Girls will especially be able to relate to the story as it revolves around an uncertain female character trying to figure out her place in the stream of things, as well as figure out her place in the hearts of the romantic interests that pursue her. It’s romance! It’s action! Lots of that drama stuff too!

The art is wispy and certainly on the shojo side of the line. The girls are pretty, and so are the boys (or at least the main ones on the Rhysmyth team of course). The text and text bubbles are all well placed and readable, and it’s nice to see all the sound effects in English for once. Most of the detail is put into the character design and the action portions – both of which are done very well and with a lot of originality.

Besides all that good stuff, Rhysmyth is bursting with all the extras that readers wish that other books had and more. There’s an extra humor comic, back story bits, “Rhysmyth history bites,” character designs and pre-planning work, etc. It’s those extra little details that make a book worth purchasing and helps to really flesh it out. The faster other artists and writers figure this out, the sooner the readers will be more willing to quickly shell out their hard earned income on gazillions of manga. Rhysmyth does a lot of things right, especially some things that other books don’t even make an attempt at – that’s worth something!

IN SUMMARY:
Rhysmyth is an action/romance manga in it’s own totally different league. There’s plenty of sports manga out there, but not too much which hold as many different ideas and character relationships as this one. Try it out!