Manga is virtual. Manga is sentiment. Manga is resistance. Manga is bizarre. Manga is pathos. Manga is destruction. Manga is arrogance. Manga is love. Manga is kitsch. Manga is sense of wonder. Manga is … there is no conclusion yet.
I originally thought I'd be an ordinary business man, but I really like art, so that's how I became a manga artist.
Before and after my debut, I've helped out other manga artists from time to time, but I have no experience of being exclusively an assistant. Nor have I done individual or self-published manga.
I've been a fan of Yoshida Akimi's manga for a long time; she's one of a few women's manga writers that I always read.
My generation was a special generation. I was born in 1960 and in my childhood we were all big manga consumers that was the culture. We were brought up in manga. Manga evolved around what was being made to cater to kids. All children at that time read ridiculously thick manga books every week.
Truth is stranger than fiction," as the old saying goes. When I watch a documentary, I can't help crying and then I think to myself, "Fiction can't compete with this." But when I mentioned this to a veteran manga artist friend of mine he said that "fiction brings salvation to characters in stories that would otherwise have no salvation at all." His words strengthened the conviction of my manga spirit.
In Japan there is a lot of manga, but around manga there are video games, manga on cellphones, manga in card games... so people not only enjoy manga but also the products around it.
The tricky or boastful gods of ancient myths and primitive folk tales are characters of the same kind that turn up in Faulkner or Tennessee Williams.
This kind of stuff, it wasn't the cool thing when I was growing up. Now, pop culture is comic books, super-hero movies, anime, manga, and I've been doing it for a long time.
As a child, because manga was always around and I was reading it, I naturally thought, "Hey, I'd like to draw manga - I'd like to be a manga author!"
As a child, because manga was always around and I was reading it, I naturally thought, 'Hey, I'd like to draw manga - I'd like to be a manga author!'
The nice thing about gag manga is how it has this aspect where, at the very least, you're permitted to come out with anything. In my case, anything can talk. Like the mountains.
I'm part of the first generation who grew up with manga [comics] and anime [animation], you know, after 'Godzilla.' I was absorbed with Ultraman on TV and in manga. The profession of game designer was created really recently. If it didn't exist, I'd probably be making anime.
I must have been 10 or 11, but anything Dana Carvey ever did, I just really loved. He was on for a long time, I don't really know when that era was. I could watch Dana Carvey with my parents, they loved him too. They loved all his characters.
I think that nationality has no relation to that which gives rise to manga. Even among the Japanese, manga creators are making their creations everyday reflecting their own individuality, with none being the same. What is important isn't the differences between the creators but their love for manga.
The thing is that I don't normally think in terms of manga when I'm writing. Sounds odd from someone who has is getting a reputation for doing manga related work. But I would say that my scripts are NOT manga at the stage of my writing process, they are just comic book stories in a more general sense.