Shiina and Takahashi (Part 2)

Translation by: Harley Acres

Shiina's works have a beautiful harmony of momentum and character (Takahashi)

What was your first impression of each other's work when you read it?

Takashi Shiina: When I was in junior high school, I read Urusei Yatsura, which had just started serialization, and was surprised to see that something amazing had started. I thought to myself, "if I can draw characters with such a strong presence, then I can do anything in manga," and that's when I decided to enter the world of manga. That's how much of an impact Takahashi's works had on me. ^[1]

Can you be more specific about what shocked you?

Shiina: For example, when the characters in the manga I had read up until then said, "this is what I think," they usually meant what they said. But in Urusei Yatsura and Maison Ikkoku, what the characters say is a lie to themselves. They have a back and forth side to them, and although they don't express their desires in a straightforward manner, they are actually acting in accordance with them. The characters have such depth, but the story itself is slapstick and very enjoyable. I was really surprised that they were able to do both.

Rumiko Takahashi: I didn't have that in mind when I was drawing.. (laughs).. I just thought it would be good if I had fun drawing and the readers laughed. But if there was something that was different from conventional manga, as Shiina-sensei said, it was probably because I had accumulated a lot of inspiration from the novels and other things I had been reading, and it just fell into place. I had just debuted, so I was trying to get those things out there.

Shiina: I see.

Takahashi: The first work of Shiina-sensei's that I read was Shiina Department Store (（有）椎名百貨店). When I read it, it was really good. I remember thinking, "what has he been doing before this?" Then, when GS Mikami Gokuraku Daisakusen! (GS美神 極楽大作戦!!) debuted and I noticed that he was really energetic and paid a lot of attention to the characters. Like his later works, Shiina's works have a beautiful harmony to them.

Shiina: Thank you!

My dream over the past 16 or 17 years has come true (Shiina).

Do you remember the first time you two met?

Takahashi: A houseboat?

Shiina: That's right. We were having a drinking party for fellow manga artists on a houseboat, and when Takahashi-sensei came to visit, it was the first time I got to say hello. But after that, it wasn't as if we were in frequent contact. We don't have the same kind of relationship. From my point of view, Takahashi-sensei is my senior. I would often visit her at work to take my wife (who used to be Rumiko Takahashi's assistant) to and from school, but it was always very exciting. ^[2]

Takahashi: Yes, I felt that too.

Everyone: (laughs)

Takahashi: When we sit there and start talking, it's really fun, so we sometimes end up talking for a long time. It's not as if we interacted frequently.

Shiina: Yes. But manga artists are always watching each other's work, so even if we don't see each other, we are somehow connected. My fellow mangaka from the same period, we hardly see each other, but it's not like we're estranged.

Takahashi: Even if we don't communicate with each other, I can sense that "you look good" or "this is what you're thinking about now".

I saw on Shiina-sensei's blog that you two had a professional connection after that. Aside from Takahashi-sensei's appearance in GS Mikami.

Shiina: When I was drawing Mikami's boss when she was young, I wanted to include something related to Sunday in the 1970s style. I wanted to include her as a character, so I asked her if I could do it.

Takahashi: He asked if he could do it, so I just said "sure" (laughs). That kind of thing is part of Shiina-sensei's flavor or fun.

Shiina: Getting back to the story, thanks to the popularity of my comicalization of the special effects show Ultraman Nexus, I was approached for several comicalization projects, including one for a game called Mobile Shinsengumi: Moeyo Ken, in which Takahashi-sensei participated as a character designer. ^[3] I had to turn down the offer because I was starting Zettai Karen Children, but I was asked if I would draw Takahashi-sensei's characters in a manga. Wouldn't that be great fun? I was always curious about it. Then, just as I was about to finish the series of Zettai Karen Children, I found out that there was an anime called Yashahime in the works, and I asked the editor in charge, "is anyone going to do the comicalization?" That's when I asked him if the timing was right, and that's when the decision was made to serialize Yashahime: Princess Half-Demon. So for me, this is a project that has been a dream come true for 16 or 17 years.

Takahashi: I think it was right after the anime project started, but when I heard Shiina-sensei say that he wanted to do a manga adaptation, I was like, "Are you kidding? (laughs) Then I thought about it again, and decided that if Shiina-sensei could comicalize it, that would be great, so I decided to ask him.

I've been working on a story that will bring Towa from Yashahime back to the world of Inuyasha. (Shiina)

On your blog, Shiina-sensei you wrote that you wanted to "increase the degree of collaboration with Inuyasha and give it a slightly stronger Japanese dark fantasy flavor. Please tell us how you came up with this concept.

Shiina: Basically, I was planning to draw the story based on the anime version, but in order to fit the story into the fixed pages of the manga, I had to cram in a certain amount of stories and elements. When I was thinking about what to use as the axis of the arrangement, I came up with the idea that the main character, Towa-chan's design like the heroine of Takarazuka indicates that she is a resident of the story world, and that she is a child who wandered into the present from the world of the story Inuyasha, and that I should return her to the original world. ^[4] I thought of making a story about returning her to the world she came from. That would fit in with the theme I like of people who feel uncomfortable in society finding a place to belong, so I built the story around that.

Takahashi: I had the image that "comicalization" was a process of creating a manga based on an anime, and I thought that it would require techniques to shorten a long anime. However, Shiina-san took the interesting aspects of the anime and transformed it into a manga. It's completely unexpected, and it's also very interesting. It's already a Shiina-san manga, and I'm very grateful for that.

Takahashi-sensei, did you have any requests for the comics?

Takahashi: "Don't make Sesshomaru break out in a cold sweat. I knew that he would protect the character's solitude and not be in too much of a hurry, but manga artists tend to draw cold sweat out of habit.

Shiina: The rest of the time I was told to "make it interesting," and I'm really laissez-faire (laughs). But the most important thing for a manga is to be interesting, so I think I'd be most upset if I did a comicalization that was not interesting but was well-done to suit various people's needs. I'm most afraid of being told, "it's boring, Shiina-kun!" That's what I'm most afraid of.

Takahashi: But it's really interesting. When I read the rough sketches of the first chapter, I was really impressed by how interesting it was. I was also impressed by the techniques of a veteran manga artist like yourself. For example, as a way to build up the characters, you started by showing Towa with evil eyes.

Shiina: That's right.

Takahashi: Setsuna, who comes after her, has an even harder look in her eyes. This made Setsuna stand out, and their father, Sesshomaru, showed us an amazing technique to make the three of them stand out together. In addition, both Towa and Setsuna are a little too long in the face, but that suits Shiina-sensei's drawing, and it makes sense that the daughters of Sesshomaru would be like that. Also, the reactions of the Higurashi family, I think it's a very well-done comicalization.

The anime will run for four cours, so the series is going to be a bit long. ^[5]

Shiina: Of course, as long as I have a hand in it, the work will be cute and I have a responsibility to it, so I want to follow the anime's story in the main and draw the heroines until they reach the final scene. However, if I make it a mere digest, the story will not be interesting as a manga, so I have to find the right balance.

When I first started MAO, only about 30% of the story was decided. (Takahashi)

Shiina-sensei, how do you feel as you read MAO?

Shiina: Among Takahashi-sensei's serialized works, MAO is quite a dark work. The structure of the story is similar to that of Inuyasha, but it focuses on unraveling the fate of the past, so it's a bit more depressing. I read it thinking, "You're doing a story for adults."

Takahashi: I like gags, romantic comedies, and fantasy, and I want to do all kinds of things, but when I think about it, I've done a lot of dark stuff in short stories. I thought that it would be impossible to have a series of dark stories because it would require a lot of technique, but at my age, I thought, "enough!" So I decided to draw a dark fantasy this time.

Shiina: (laughs)

Takahashi: Part of it was just a hobby, and I was planning to do a juvenile story, but eventually I realized that there were many expressions that I felt were not suitable for children (laughs). But I was like, "enough!" and let myself do whatever I wanted.

MAO has been published up to volume 11, is there still a long way to go?

Takahashi: I'm not sure how long it will be, but I don't think it will be too long. It has a strong mystery element, so once the mystery is solved, the story will be settled to some extent. However, I can't say for sure because I haven't solved half of the mysteries yet and new ones are coming up.

I've read this far, and I feel that the story development is more skillful than in the past works. Did you think about the composition before the serialization?

Takahashi: I didn't even have 30% of the story decided at first. I had a certain goal in mind, but after I started drawing, I realized that there were many things I had to add. For example, I didn't have a clear idea of the culprit of the incident that occurred in the Heian period. But as I was thinking about who might have been the culprit, I realized that it would be boring if there weren't many suspects, so I decided to have five Onmyoji in the Five Sided Shrine. After that, I created new mysteries and relationships for each of them and started working on them, so I still can't tell what will happen next. Recently, I've been discussing the story with the editor in charge, "if we don't decide on this part, we'll be in big trouble." ^[6]

No series is completely haphazard (Shiina)

Shiina-sensei, do you think about the story before you start drawing? Or do you leave it to the momentum of the series to some extent?

Shiina: If you just do the things you've decided at the beginning in order, it may not be very exciting, so if you come up with something interesting, don't hesitate to include it. But if the final product is not a beautiful composition, it's not good. But even if I do something that I haven't thought about beforehand, as if it were a live performance, I'm sure I'll have some idea of how it's going to flow and where it's going to end up. So, I don't think it's completely haphazard.

In the case of Shiina's work, I felt a strong sense of live action in Luciola from GS Mikami. Luciola, the heroine who appeared at the end of the story, became unusually popular, and I couldn't read what would happen next.

Shiina: Thank you very much. At that time, I felt that I had already drawn out the theme within the framework of the three of them, Mikami, Yokoshima, and Okine, doing something together, so I thought I'd bring out a cute girl to stir things up a bit. However, I was a little troubled when the character of Luciola unexpectedly stood out and almost destroyed the world of Mikami and the others. I had decided from the beginning that she would disappear, but when she did, the readers got angry, and now that I think about it, I think I may have made the wrong decision.

No, no, she was a very interesting character. Takahashi-sensei, is there anything that you did that you didn't expect?

Takahashi: I'm kind of like a teenager going through puberty when I’m drawing. I enjoy drawing that kind of work, but there are times when I suddenly come back to myself at the climax and say, "oh, what the hell am I doing...? I sometimes come back to myself.

Shiina: Hahaha (laughs).

Takahashi: In MAO, there's the scene where Kamon makes his first appearance. He's helping a certain rich boy cover up a crime he committed, and I drew the female victim as usual. I had no doubt in my mind that he was a really bad guy, but after a while I realized that it was a shonen manga (laughs). That may have been the moment when I was swallowed up by the work.

There is one more thing I would like to ask you about MAO. Recently, the characters on the Reiwa era side have been wearing sick masks, what is the purpose of this?

Takahashi: There is no special intention. We just put them on because this is the situation in real life. The story of MAO starts in the first year of the Reiwa Era, and it's now the second year of the Reiwa Era. Since the pandemic is happening now, I couldn't avoid it, so I depicted the situation as it was set in 2019.

Shiina: In my case, I'm drawing a fictional world, so it's not relevant right now, but what if I were to draw the Reiwa era? If drawing a pandemic is meaningful, I might have her wear a mask, but if I can't think of a theme that uses it, I might just draw a world without a pandemic.

Takahashi: But when it came time to draw an important scene, I thought the mask would get in the way (laughs). But since it's a manga, I'll try to overcome that difficulty in various ways.

The Sunday-style is elegance and gentleness (Takahashi)

From here, we will hear from both of you again. In the Rumiko Takahashi Mangabon that Shiina-sensei also contributed to, Kazuhiro Fujita and Ryoji Minagawa called Takahashi-sensei "the mother of manga" and "the goddess of manga. ^[7] In addition, when she opened her Twitter account questions from readers are also welcome, I felt that she was adored by various manga artists, but how does a Rumiko Takahashi-freak like you feel about her, Shiina-sensei?

Shiina: It's because she is a very decent person with overwhelming talent. Normally, talented people can be quite eccentric or distorted, but Takahashi-sensei is really easy to talk to, and she doesn't step on any strange landmines and suddenly get angry (laughs). I think that's why everyone thinks of her as a senior who has both talent and personality and can be trusted.

Next, please tell us about Weekly Shonen Sunday. Why did you submit to Sunday in the first place? Shiina-sensei, was it because Takahashi-sensei was there?

Shiina: Yep (laughs).

I've heard that Shiina-sensei studied Takahashi-sensei's work very hard when he was a new writer.

Shiina: At that time, I was just studying what Takahashi-sensei drew. For example, if it was a 40-page short story, I'd be thinking, "I need to get to this point on page 10," or "this is what needs to happen on page 20 for the story to unfold." The quality of such a sense of tempo is very high, so when I had trouble, I would read back and refer to it.

Takahashi: Thank you. I've been reading Sunday since I was a kid, and it was one of my favorite magazines. For a long time, Sunday has had a kind of Newcomer's Award, and the readers were very kind to the works of new writers. ^[8]

Shiina: That’s right.

Takahashi: There's an atmosphere where the readers support the new writers. In addition, the editors treat them well. ^[9] I also submitted to Sunday because my favorite author Ryoichi Ikegami's Otoko-gumi was serialized there. ^[10]

You've both been active in Weekly Shonen Sunday for a long time.

Takahashi: If you compare it to Magazine, Champion, and Jump, I think its almost like they are color-coded somehow. It's like, "Sunday is a little more difficult, it has manga that makes you think.” It's also quite mild. There are a lot of people drawing manga, and some of the artists are very energetic, but compared to other magazines, they're still more elegant or gentle.

Shiina: The pace of publication in weekly shonen magazines is very demanding, and there are strict demands on sales, but out of the four weekly shonen magazines, Sunday is the one where the artists can do whatever they want. I feel that there is room for manga lovers to publish what they consider to be well-balanced works.

Takahashi: I feel that they really value the artists. I thought that kind of atmosphere was good for me when I submitted my work, so I guess Sunday was the right place for me.

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Footnotes

• [1] In addition to his work on Yashahime, he also has provided celebratory illustrations for various milestones in Takahashi career including a "My Lum" illustration.
• [2] Takashi Shiina is married to Aya Shimizu (清水彩) who was one of Takahashi's assistants from Urusei Yatsura, through Maison Ikkoku and Ranma 1/2. This same houseboat party is discussed by Ryoji Minagawa and Kazuhiro Fujita in an interview where they discussed meeting Rumiko Takahashi.
• [3] Moeyo Ken (機動新撰組 萌えよ剣/Kidou Shinsengumi Moeyo Ken) began as a Playstation 2 visual novel style game and then quickly became a series of OVAs followed by a television series. The series was created by Sakura Wars writer Oji Hiroi (広井王子) and Rumiko Takahashi was brought on to provide character designs and consequently each following media incarnation kept her designs as their template.
• [4] Takahashi is an avowed Takarazuka fan, having written a short story, Reserved Seat, about the theater.
• [5] A "cour" is a season of anime, in Japan, roughly 12 to 13 episodes, so 4 cours would be roughly 48 to 52 episodes.
• [6] Riri Okamoto (岡本吏莉) would have recently become her editor as she took over from Kento Moriwaki (森脇健人) around this time.
• [7] Rumiko Takahashi Book (漫画家本vol.14 高橋留美子本/Mangaka Bon vol. 14 Takahashi Rumiko Bon) is a book that discusses Rumiko Takahashi, including a 40,000-word interview and a dialogue between Kazuhiro Fujita and Ryoji Minagawa)
• [8] Takahashi won honorable mention for the 2nd Shogakukan Newcomers Manga Award (第2回小学館新人コミック大賞) in the shonen category. The way the Newcomer Manga Award is structured is there is a single winner and then two to three honorable mentions that are unranked. In 1978 the winner in the shonen category was Yoshimi Yoshimaro (吉見嘉麿) for D-1 which was published in Shonen Sunday 1978 Vol. 26. The other honorable mentions in addition to Rumiko Takahashi were Masao Kunitoshi (国俊昌生) for The Memoirs of Dr. Watson (ワトソン博士回顧録) which was published in Shonen Sunday 1978 Vol. 27 and Hiroaki Oka (岡広秋) for Confrontation on the Snowy Mountains (雪山の対決) which was published in a special edition of Shonen Sunday (週刊少年サンデー増刊号). Oka would also publish later under the name Jun Hayami (早見純). Other winners in various Newcomers categories include Gosho Aoyama, Koji Kumeta, Yuu Watase, Kazuhiko Shimamoto, Naoki Urasawa, Kazuhiro Fujita and Ryoji Minagawa, Yellow Tanabe and Takashi Iwashige.
• [9] Some artists like Makoto Raiku would no doubt disagree with Takahashi regarding how nice Shonen Sunday editors are.
• [10] Ryoichi Ikegami (池上遼一) is by far Takahashi's biggest influence and favorite artist as she has professed many times. His work includes Crying Freeman (クライング フリーマン), Sanctuary (サンクチュアリ) and Wounded Man (傷追い人).

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