DEATH

CUPID

AN ORIGINAL ACTION ROMANCE MANGA

ABOUT

BALANCE IN EVERYTHING

Without darkness there is no light, and without evil there is no good. That is the way of our universe.

DEATH CUPID is a work-in-progress original manga that I have been working on since I was 10 years old, following teenager Katherine Amore who finds out her dead father is still alive through a mysterious encounter.

SYNOPSIS

Plagued by recent strange dreams that seem like familiar visions, Katherine Amore, an unassuming teenage girl, tries to navigate school life while longing for her deceased father, despite the many years that have passed since his death.

While slightly unsettled by the constant visions she sees, Katherine's life only gets more bizarre when a mysterious young man at her school starts following her until he corners her for an interrogation.

Katherine's ordinary life turns upside down when she learns her father was a divine being with powers, and more importantly, is still alive but missing. It's now up to her to find him, to ultimately fight a war the world is oblivious to.

THEMES

Initially, the story was almost a copy-and-paste of Inuyasha - girl finds mysterious boy in forest, talks to him, and is transported into a parallel universe. As I grew up, I realised the story was... unrealistic, to say the least. Since then, I've been developing the story to have more realistic inciting incidents and conflicts, leading to more well-developed characters and character interactions. And what better way to write a character than to express yourself through them?

Death Cupid borrows real-life experiences about heartbreak, struggles with self-worth and mental illness, as well as eventually finding your people and discovering the power you hold. As I struggle with BPD (Borderline Personality Disorder), recent comic strips also contain messages about finding balance between black and white (a common struggle for folks with BPD), and how we can navigate relationships with others and ourselves by breaking the typical barriers we subconsciously create - hence the imagery of the Yin Yang symbol.

It also contains queer themes; as I matured into adulthood and learned more about gender identity and sexual orientations, I explored my own identity by drawing short comic strips of the characters having internal monologues about queerness. Through them, I learned that a lot of the emotional struggles we face are because we live in a world where lots of rules around identity are unnecessarily enforced, and as a result we think we are at fault when we don't "fit in".

Hence with my story, I hope to inspire people to find their balance too, be it in their relationships or in everyday practices, even if it's in a world full of chaos and uncertainty.