Beginning August 12, Shinzou Sound, a group of artists and musicians will launch Synesthesia the interactive online manga. NOBODY KNOWS will be the theme song.
Shinzou Sound is a group of creative collaborators specializing in manga, music, web design, and popular culture. They joined forces with the simple concept of merging their talents in an effort to deliver the new entertainment of music and manga in an innovative way. Exclusive songs, inspired by the manga story have been commissioned for Synesthesia as well as playlist from international and Japanese DJ's. The music, podcasts and playlists will all be available from iTunes Music Store Japan.
Project members include leader Nick Wood, Simon LeBon, Tatsuya Oe, DJ Sugiurumn, Alex Paterson, manga artist Enka Sugihara and web designer Hideki Owa, with more names being added as each new episode is released.
Synesthesia has three main characters: Shinzou (main character), his sister Tamako, and DJ Karita (who they met when they accidentally swapped iPods on the train). These 3 individuals form a band and begin a journey of musical inspiration.
The story is split into 10 episodes with one new episode released every 2 weeks. Each new episode comes with an original new song, which can be down loaded free, from iTunes. Users can also download Podcasts showing behind the scenes, interviews and more. Shinzou sounds are also planning a live event to merge the manga storyline with an actual live event. They plan to invite artist who've contributed to the project to participate in bringing Shinzou's world to the stage.
Shinzou sounds plan to publish a physical manga book at the end of the Synesthesia series along with a full-length digital album featuring the entire soundtrack, this will be a true collectors edition.
iTunes Japan:
SYN info on Podcast:
Shinzou Homepage:
