Culture Shock Talk

Translated by: Robby Stine

Discussing the “Alice in Mangaland” Woman Theory that has given birth to the likes of Lum (Urusei Yatsura), Kyoko (Maison Ikkoku) and many other sexy characters.

Rumiko Takahashi vs. Shigesato Itoi
Takahashi: “When drawing manga, I don’t think there’s anything more entertaining than women.”

She made her striking debut with Urusei Yatsura (Shonen Sunday) while in her third year of university. With this one piece Rumiko Takahashi quickly found her place in the manga big leagues, though at first glance she's just another cute little girl. A Rumiko-tan, if you will.

Once she starts talking, though, she’s full of surprises. The off-kilter mix of her genius-like ability to read people, her girlish looks, and selfish heart left us charmed.

Takahashi: The reason I draw manga is to draw it, so I don’t feel the need to go out at all.

Itoi: Speaking frankly, manga artists make a lot of money these days, don’t they?

Takahashi: Yes...

Itoi: Like, with character goods and such...

Takahashi: You’re not wrong, but I don’t really get money.

Itoi: Okay then, what’s a realistic amount of cash for you?

Takahashi: Around 300,000 yen or so?

Itoi: 300,000, huh. That’s pretty good. No one wants to give away 3,000,000, but most would give 300,000, and it’s an amount just about anybody would want.

Takahashi: I mean, how do you even use 3,000,000? But you can take your 300,000, hit the town, buy some silly, unnecessary things, and still have a bit left over.

Itoi: Yeah, that’s perfect. By the way, do you receive your earnings using a company system?

Takahashi: No.

Itoi: That’s what I ended up doing. So I take a monthly salary. I technically have a company, but I’m the sole earner and provider (laughs).

Takahashi: Perhaps I just have a bit of a warped personality, but the idea of not being in control of the money that you yourself earn is not something I can get behind. If you use the company system, you lose control, don’t you?

Itoi: But big manga artists can earn hundreds of millions a year, right?

Takahashi: Whoa, hundred of millions?

Itoi: You don’t?

Takahashi: I can’t even comprehend that amount.

Itoi: Anyway, I imagine office ladies’ would think in terms of less than 300,000.

Takahashi: I wouldn’t be so sure. Office ladies work with the goal of going out and having fun. They work at the same place for a long time and save so they can travel abroad. With that kind of desire, I’d bet they’d want more.

Itoi: And you’re not like them?

Takahashi: Drawing manga is a kind of purification process for me.

Itoi: You mean the actual act of drawing manga?

Takahashi: Exactly. So I don’t really need to go out and have fun like that. When I’m drawing manga, I draw it without having to worry about food. In a sense, I draw manga for the sake of drawing it.

Itoi: You must love manga from the bottom of your heart.

Takahashi: I do.

Itoi: It’s like a sort of Alice in Mangaland thing.

Takahashi: Yeah, I get completely absorbed in my work. I really am Alice in Mangaland.

Itoi: So say if it’s the middle of the night and you finish drawing a chapter and you feel like “Ha, thank goodness!”. Do you ever pour yourself a drink and let loose?

Takahashi: I never have enough energy left for that. I’m too exhausted. And I’m never lucky enough to finish during the night anyway. Or by dawn, for that matter. I don’t usually finish until noon or the evening.

Itoi: When do you start work?

Takahashi: Imagine I wake up at around noon. I move to my desk in the evening, and really get down to business throughout the night. ^[1]

Itoi: I have a pretty similar schedule, but I do have work meetings in the afternoons... ^[2]

Takahashi: When I’m not working, I just sit around, staring at the ceiling and such... I also have really long phone calls to blow off some steam. ^[3] Since I don’t go out and see people.

Itoi: Compared to the average person, that’s a pretty unusual lifestyle.

Takahashi: Yes, but I guess I’ve been like this since I was a child.

Itoi: So you were a bit isolated.

Takahashi: Yes. I’ve hated going out since I was small. Even if I was invited to the movies, I’d go so far as to fake illness to get out of it…

Takahashi: My first memory reading manga was a scene of a princess being tortured. It was just before I started kindergarten.

Itoi: Have you liked drawing since you were a kid?

Takahashi: Yes, I loved doodling.

Itoi: Would it be accurate to say you were happy as long as you were drawing?

Takahashi: Yes, I’d say so.

Itoi: From the time you were in kindergarten or elementary school?

Takahashi: The first time I drew manga I was about three years old.

Itoi: What did you draw?

Takahashi: I drew a deer. Deers have spots on their backs, right? Everyone praised me for drawing those spots, all like “It’s a deer! Look at those spots!” They were so happy that I went a bit overboard and drew spots over its entire body (laughs).

Itoi: How about elementary school? Were you known as being the girl who could draw?

Takahashi: Yeah, that’s pretty much how it was. Whenever we had a break, the girls would quickly line up with their notebooks.

Itoi: Like an autograph session.

Takahashi: Yeah. I was pretty stupid in first and second grade, though.

Itoi: So you couldn’t write?

Takahashi: I wasn’t that bad (laughs). But I was pretty close (laughs again). I mean, I had no idea why I had to go to school or what I was expected to do there.

Itoi: But most kids are like that (laughs).

Takahashi: Everyone seemed to understand me, but I was pretty hopeless. I could mostly understand the words coming out of my teacher’s mouth, but I didn’t really comprehend the meaning behind them.

Itoi: Hmmm.

Takahashi: My brain couldn’t handle it.

Itoi: Or maybe you didn’t have a brain (laughs). You just lived off of pure reflexes.

Takahashi: That sounds about right.

Itoi: That sounds like how I live now (laughs). The other members of your family were intelligent, though?

Takahashi: No, I wouldn’t say that.

Itoi: What’s the family business?

Takahashi: Medicine.

Itoi: Sounds like they’re pretty intelligent to me.

Takahashi: Just because there’s a doctor in the family?

Itoi: I’m guessing it’s your father who studied medicine?

Takahashi: Well, yes (laughs). Anyway, I was doing alright by the 4th or 5th grade. But then in the 6th grade my grades dropped dramatically and continued that way into junior high. I thought I’d gotten my act together by my third year there, but it all went out the window in high school.

Itoi: Your grades went up and down like an elevator (laughs). Were there a lot of manga magazines around the house growing up?

Takahashi: There were. I had an older brother who read Shonen Sunday and the like. My first memory reading a manga magazine was before I started kindergarten. I think it was Shojo Friend. Of course I couldn’t really understand what I was reading. I was just flipping through the pages, and happened to see a scene of a princess getting tortured. “If you don’t answer us, we’ll do this!”, and they ripped her clothes. That’s where the chapter ended. I really wanted to know what happened next. Would they really rip off her clothes? I was so excited. It really left an impression on me. I probably just have a pervy heart (laughs).

Itoi: So, when did you first think you wanted to be a manga artist?

Takahashi: Probably my first year of high school. I guess you could say I was coming into my own, and I started to consider “other” things. It was around that time. Though I loved manga, I had never thought of becoming a manga artist myself up to that point. I’d been feeling like something was off about that. Then I started thinking about the people around me, and it might be a bit of an exaggeration, but that led me to think about the people who read manga...

Itoi: So that’s when you decided to become a manga artist.

Takahashi: Yes.

Itoi: If you can’t make money from your work, you won’t improve as a copy writer nor as a manga artist. And before you can create, you must be confident.

Itoi: When you first started, did you draw four-panel comics, or story comics?

Takahashi: Four panel comics. I think it was during the spring vacation between my last year at elementary school and my first year of junior high.

Itoi: You were pretty young. To tell you the truth, I used to want to be a manga artist myself. I actually wrote a 32 page comic around the time I started university. I thought I’d enter the Garo magazine contest.

Takahashi: Did you actually do it?

Itoi: No, I was involved in some student protests at the time and didn’t return home for while. While I was away, the paper yellowed and seemed really old (laughs).

Takahashi: I entered my manga into a contest.

Itoi: Where?

Takahashi: To Shonen Magazine.

Itoi: A story comic?

Takahashi: Yes, a 44 page one.

Itoi: That can’t have been easy.

Takahashi: It took me two or three months.

Itoi: Did you build up a stock of manuscripts?

Takahashi: I didn’t stock them, no, but I wrote a bunch of manuscripts for the fun of it. I drew only what I wanted and didn’t even bother with doing backgrounds. The thought of showing them to others is too embarrassing, so I’ve kept them to myself.

Itoi: Were they for self study?

Takahashi: They didn’t even reach that level...

Itoi: I learned a lot from Shotaro Ishimori’s book on how to draw manga.　^[3]

Takahashi: Oh, I read that too.

Itoi: He also did a book on how to draw serial manga, but the more I read, the more I realized I could never be a manga artist myself. The book said you could do it so long as you had the motivation, but.. (laughs).

Takahashi: I see...

Itoi: So you said before you realized you wanted to be a manga artist in your first year of high school, but when did you find the motivation to become a pro?

Takahashi: After I started university.

Itoi: Were you a member of the manga club in university?

Takahashi: I was. But our club was really into sharing our work, so we didn’t work on our own projects privately.

Itoi: It’s rare to see pros who learned their trade from things like a manga club or a Rakugo club. ^[4]

Takahashi: It seems that way.

Itoi: It’s the same for clubs studying advertising. I don’t mean to brag, but when I was a university student I knew nothing about the subject. Had I known, I wouldn’t have ended up in this industry.

Takahashi: For myself, I didn’t feel like I’d really started drawing manga until after I started working as a pro. I worked on those professional manuscripts while thinking to myself how much I wanted to be a pro. It sounds a bit backwards, but that’s how it felt. You’re supposed to build up your skills before you go pro. I think I’m an odd case. I thought if I didn’t up my skill as I did professional work, I’d never get better…

Itoi: In the music world, you’d be The Southern All Stars. Even though people might say you are terrible, if you start with a hit then you win. If all you do is play for your five friends, you’ll never have a chance to show your work to the masses.

Takahashi: I think so. Even with copywriters, I imagine you can’t get better just by studying?

Itoi: No, studying is pretty important, actually.

Takahashi: Really...

Itoi: But the same as with manga, if you can’t publish and make money from your work, I can guarantee you’ll never become a better copy writer. To go a little further, I think that before you can do good work, you need to master confidence. And you need opportunity as well.

Itoi: Women have something absurd about them, and that’s why I’m fascinated with them.

Itoi: Do you read a lot of manga?

Takahashi: Yes, of course... When it comes to shojo manga, I am a pure fan.

Itoi: What about shonen manga, or manga for the older crowd?

Takahashi: I read those as well.

Itoi: Who’s an artist’s work you’re reading now that you particularly enjoy?

Takahashi: I have to give a name? Hmmm. It’d have to be Ryoko Yamagishi. ^[5]

Itoi: Is she a friend of yours?

Takahashi: I’m simply a fan.

Itoi: Do you not socialize with other manga artists?

Takahashi: Rarely. My friends are all people I knew before I made my debut.

Itoi: So when you get fan letters, do you prefer those from people who say they love you yourself, or those who say they love the boarding house manager from Big Comic Spirit’s Maison Ikokku?

Takahashi: The latter. The boarding house manager.

Itoi: I had a feeling you’d say that...

Takahashi: Without a doubt.

Itoi: I’m not just a loyal reader of Maison Ikkoku, I’m obsessed with it. There are towels and posters and stuff of that boarding house manager, right? I want them all.

Takahashi: Yeah, there are. I can get them to you.

Itoi: I like Maison Ikkoku’s boarding house manager more than Urusei Yatsura’s Lum. Looking at your work as a whole, it’s mostly manga for boys.

Takahashi: Yes...

Itoi: Is this influenced by reading your brother’s copies of Shonen Sunday, as you mentioned before?

Takahashi: As to whether or not the manga I read back then is what is keeping me afloat these days, I don’t really know.

Itoi: Really.

Takahashi: I’m 24 years old now. And at this age, I’m really fascinated with women. So I really love that this boarding house manager allows me to draw them. For example, there are those statues of Madonna, right? If you start stripping her down, you’ll be exposed to her cute bits, her terrible bits. My perverted heart would like to see those bits.

Itoi: So when you talk about about drawing women, does that analogy come from your own feelings, or something else?

Takahashi: My imagination. You could say I draw based on my own image of a perfect woman. In short, what I think women should be. Or, the kind of woman I couldn’t be.

Itoi: And now I have to ask, is there any reason why you chose to make the boarding house manager a widow?

Takahashi: I just thought it might be the better way to do it. It’s not a mystery to solve, but I wanted her to have a secret. In any case I just wanted her character to have a bit to her.

Itoi: She’s a widow, and it’s like she’s pledged herself to chastity. But at the same time she has this side of her that is weak to temptation, that if you ask, she’ll open the door for you. If she was simply staunchly chaste, she’d be nothing but unreasonable…. So, what I’m saying is I think the comic’s secret to success lies somewhere in there.

Takahashi: This goes a bit into the process of writing manga, but even when considering the story, I want some kind of barrier. I don’t want people just getting together because they love each other. Societal structures keep things from going the way we want, and we’re shackled down by any number of things. When things get tricky, naturally it becomes easier for the story to unfold.

Itoi: In any case, right now you are fascinated with women.

Takahashi: They’re great.

Itoi: And hey, I love women! (laughs) Much more than men, if I’m being honest. I hate men! (laughs)

Takahashi: I don’t hate men, but when drawing manga, I don’t think there’s anything more entertaining than women.

Itoi: Women just have some absurdity in them, don’t they?

Takahashi: And that’s why they are so entertaining.

Itoi: Please keep turning out these absurd women.

Takahashi: Thank you very much.

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Footnotes

• [1] Decades later during her first week on Twitter Takahashi posted about her schedule and it was quite similar- working through the night and finishing in the morning and then sleeping for a few hours until mid-afternoon.
• [2] Shigesato Itoi (糸井重里) is a famous advertising copywriter in Japan, though he has many other talents. He writes essays, creates video games including the very well loved Mother/Earthbound series of games for Nintendo. He also voiced Satsuki's father in My Neighbor Totoro (となりのトトロ). Itoi puts his copywriting skills to use for Studio Ghibli as he is the man responsible for writing many of the taglines that appear on the posters.
• [3] This book is Shotaro Ishinomori's Becoming a Mangaka (石ノ森章太郎の マンガ家入門/Shotaro Ishinomori no Mangaka Nyumon).
• [4] Rakugo (落語) is a traditional form of comedic storytelling.
• [5] Ryoko Yamagishi (山岸凉子) is a member of the famous Year 24 Group of shojo artists. Some of her most notable works include Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (日出処の天子) and Maihime Terpsichora (舞姫 テレプシコーラ).

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