Simurgh

[Atrius (He/Him)]

Hmm... Is it just me or is something interesting going on with the chinaman Niponese man.  Very interesting story indeed, can't wait to see how things progress.

After rereading the entire chapter though I've come to the conclusion that the story is moving too fast, it seems like everything that happens is for the sole purpose of moving the story forward.  With all of these major plot events happening in rapid succession there's not much room left for any character development, just as soon as they're introduced they're left behind before the reader can form any attachment to them.  It'd help a lot if you slowed things down to give the reader a better idea of who the characters are, what the world the story is taking place in is like, and why they should care about it all.  There's just too much action without much to draw the reader into it right now, our only real attachment to the story so far is Julian since he's the only thing in the comic we've seen much of when there isn't a lot of other stuff going on so far.

[Charon]

I couldn't agree more. In Part 2: Egret the focus is definitely going to be development (Julian, Kouki and like 4 other characters stay in the same place for the majority of the 48 pages). I needed to get a ton of stuff set up in the first 48 pages (a lot of it is stuff you don't even realize yet) so that I really felt like I rushed things, and didn't allow much room for development. The intent is that this is one piece of 8 parts, so part 1 was intended to set up the story. I basically wanted to establish in terms of development that Julian's a naive idiot who lets his heart think for him but he's also a Simurgh; most of the other characters kinda play a role of supporting Julian's character than becoming independent (Kouki will soon become an exception though). If I can get a publisher on hand I will insist that this is a single work, not 8 48-page volumes.

[spoiler=other characters]
Kouki develops greatly in Part 2: Egret as well as in sequential volumes.

Lazlo and Mike are reintroduced in Part 3: Skylark as major characters.

Elaine dies at the beginning of Part Egret.

Simon becomes a primary antagonist in Part Skylark.

Robert (currently the unnamed bird-faced man) explains a major plot element in Part Egret.

In Part Egret, several members of the Scarlet Mercenaries are introduced. In order of story importance, the mercenaries are Julian, Kouki, Joshua, Thomas, Fletcher, Vincent, Matthew. Two minor characters Lucas and Mordecai are also introduced, used as props to support Fletcher's, Joshua's, Julian's, Thomas's and (to a lesser extent) Kouki's development. Later in Part Skylark Mitch is recruited and becomes a Chekov's Gunman.[/spoiler]