“Moments of CRYING, SMILING or LOVE” is the theme for SMA15. With endless possibilities for stories covering each of these emotions, we’ll look at the work of Zenon’s own mangakas for inspiration. Each mangaka featured in this series started out just like you, by entering manga into the Japanese Silent Manga competition under the same emotional themes. From there, they have all gone onto professional careers with successful series in Monthly Comic Zenon. Title: Stop at the Traffic Light Author: Ayano Ayano Category: Love Round: #33 Year: 2015 Award: Excellence Award Current Series: Maou-sama wa Kakinchu! (lit: The Demon Lord is a Gaming Addict!)     JUDGES COMMENT: “The characters and backgrounds are drawn exceptionally well, and the atmosphere throughout the whole work is wonderful. The expressions of the characters, the girl in particular, is excellent and easily conveys her emotions without the use of dialogue. The author has a clear talent, and a professional debut is absolutely expected.”     Ayano Ayano-sensei is an exceptional manga artist. With sensei’s Silent Manga award winning work Stop at the Traffic Light, we see an inescapable talent for characterization and emotion through expressions, along with page composition and narrative flow. In the words of the judges, “a debut is absolutely expected”!     That debut came in the form of Maou-sama wa Kakinchu! (lit: The Demon Lord is a Gaming Addict!). A visually arresting work about a child-like Demon Lord with an addiction for mobile games. The talent for conveying emotion is taken to the extreme with these larger than life supernatural characters, frolicking amongst the pages. Considered within both the “ecchi” (comedic sexuality) and “yuri” (female homoerotica) manga genres, Maou-sama wa Kakinchu! makes no apologies for its intended message – and drawn in Ayano Ayano-sensei’s unique and inescapably playful style, the manga’s readership needs no apology to enjoy this memorable work!