Discerning Interview
To Become a Professional, You Must Have Patience and Mental Strength

Translated by: Harley Acres

Ryoichi Ikegami and Rumiko Takahashi appear as special instructors at the Kazuo Koike Gekiga Sonjuku in Tokyo! Our editorial department also interviewed the students of the school.

Create characters that are true to the original work.

Do you have models for the characters you draw?

Ikegami: I have been working with original works for a long time, so I try to draw characters that are more true to those in the original works. In terms of preferences, I like characters with a whiff of decadence. I like Dominique Sanda, for example. ^[1]

What does the original author mean to you?

Ikegami: In the case of Koike-sensei, he's been doing this for a long time, so I think he knows my style and tastes very well. He writes accordingly, so I really like the characters.

Life is like this, I want to draw people like that.

Do you feel that your characters have been overlooked at first glance?

Ikegami: Yes. It comes out in the male characters. It's also the same with the bad guys. The lines that the villain spits out are outstanding. So even the antagonists have their own philosophy of life, and it makes me happy when I see that in their dialog. I don't want to depict a life where you simply climb to the top anymore. I want to depict a person who knows where he's going, someone who has already climbed to the top, and who acts with an open mind, that this is how life is going to be anyway.

It seems that you have quite a few female fans of your works.

Ikegami: Women like beautiful things. In order to make a hit, it's necessary to create something that tickles the female reader's fancy.

Do you analyze the recent hit trends in manga and draw with those in mind?

Ikegami: I don't think about it too much. I don't think it's good if I try too hard to fit in with the current era. I think Koike-sensei knows this as well. I have to stick to my own world. Even if I do something with an original story, I have to have something I want to depict in order for it to be successful.

I'm most concerned about the drawing going wrong.

Do you like martial arts?

Ikegami: I used to go to matches when I was working on Men's Group (男組/Otokogumi). ^[2] I've never disliked martial arts. I did it for about a month when I was in junior high school, and then I stopped because I thought I'd become a mangaka in the future and I didn't want to hurt my hands. ^[3]

How do you make action scenes look so great?

Ikegami: I rely on my intuition. I look at various materials and think, "This'll be pretty cool." In my case, the face is very important. Even in an action scene, it depends on how well I draw the face.

Please tell us what to keep in mind when drawing faces.

Ikegami: In my case, the face is everything, everything. I have a strong sense of beauty for everything that is well-defined, which I guess is a complex. ^[4] One expression on a woman's face can take an hour or two.

What kind of things would you be interested in in the future?

Ikegami: In the future, I want to do a jidaimono. I was moved to see about 15 samurai lined up in front of the Sphinx of Egypt in a photo magazine. ^[5] I think the old Japanese were amazing. That's what I want to draw. I'd like to borrow a stage from a period piece and depict what we live for. In the current era, you can't draw it quite so openly, but that's what it is. For the time being, I want to do my best to make both Nobunaga (信長) and Freeman (クライング フリーマン) more and more popular. ^[6]

The most extreme of all the secrets to becoming a professional is...

What are your memories of your Gekiga Sonjuku days?

Takahashi: Those days were lively and interesting. Rather than being upbeat, life was energetic but certainly not a game. It was such a powerful time. After our sessions at Sonjuku were over, we would drink tea and talk about manga, which was a lot of fun. ^[7]

Please tell us what lessons you still remember from Gekiga Sonjuku.

Takahashi: When it came to Koike-sensei, the things that were taught were for real professionals. So there were things that I could not have understood when I was still an amateur, but when I became a professional and think back on them years later, I understand everything that I was taught. If I had to sum it up in succinctly, I would say "sit down at your desk," which is the first step. If you can't do that, you can't become a manga artist.

Nowadays, you are able to travel abroad (actually, at this time, Takahashi-sensei was preparing for a trip to Mexico). ^[8] Though I understand that you are mostly at home.

Takahashi: Most of the time, I am working at home, so I think of ideas at my desk rather than outside.

Create something out of nothing

Where do you start looking for stories?

Takahashi: I watch TV, and I think about it for some reason. Also, when I go out once in a while, I always find something interesting. If there is something to get from that, then I think an idea will spread from there.

Which authors have influenced you the most?

Takahashi: I've been influenced by many people, so the list is endless, but I adore Ikegami-sensei as if he were Hotoke-sama. ^[9] I was shocked when I saw Ikegami-sensei's drawings when I was in the second year of junior high school. I had never really had a passionate desire to seriously draw until then.

Did you read any shojo manga?

Takahashi: Yes, I did. I read manga by Moto Hagio-sensei, Ryoko Yamagishi-sensei, and others. ^[10]

Takahashi-sensei, I heard that you always submit a storyboard.

Takahashi: There are a lot of professional mangaka who work on their own without sketching a storyboard. I'm simply too scared to do it. I usually draw a storyboard that I can refer back to, but I still have a phobia of confirmation, so I can't work as much as I want unless I put all the pieces together properly first. Or rather, I don't want to draw with fear and dread hanging over me.

The name of the main character and the title stick to the end

After all, do you consider even a single word bubble?

Takahashi: It's all about how much you can omit. Manga really can be extremely shapeless. But I think there are a lot of people who neglect the storyboards.

Please define professional.

Takahashi: I think that a person is not a professional if he or she cannot produce a weekly series, and that they must always be able to produce what's required within a one-week period, for example, 70 percent every week as a minimum. In the end, the difference between a professional and an amateur is whether or not they can continue or not. If an amateur paints a 100-point picture once in their lifetime, that is the end of it and they should be satisfied.

It's about persistence, isn't it? In the end, does it come down to mental strength?

Takahashi: Absolutely, yes. I think it is also the essence of professionalism to create something from nothing.

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What do you think? We were very impressed that both sensei were willing to be interviewed, even though it was a busy time before their lectures. Now, now, now, you aspiring professionals, let's get to our desks!

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Footnotes

• [1] Dominique Sanda is a French actress known for appearing in Bernardo Bertolucci's The Conformist (1970), John Huston's The Mackintosh Man (1973) with Paul Newman and Lilliana Cavani's Beyond Good and Evil (1977).
• [2] Men's Group (男組/Otokogumi) is the 1974-1979 manga series written by Tetsu Kariya (雁屋哲) and illustrated by Ryoichi Ikegami (池上遼一). It is one of Takahashi's favorite manga by Ikegami, who is also her favorite mangaka. Takahashi discusses the series in her interview with Toshiaki Sato (佐藤敏章), one of Ikegami's former editors.
• [3] Ikegami got his start as one of Shigeru Mizuki's (水木しげる) assistants alongside Yoshiharu Tsuge (つげ義春). Mizuki is best known for Gegege no Kitaro (ゲゲゲの鬼太郎) but in his autobiographical manga Showa: A History of Japan (コミック昭和史) Mizuki includes stories of Ikegami coming to work for him.
• [4] Ikegami says something similar decades later on Naoki Urasawa's Manben (浦沢直樹の漫勉) television program. He expressed a desire to show the beauty of Japanese people in his manga.
• [5] The photograph that Ikegami mentions here is an 1864 photograph taken by Antonio Beato of the Ikeda Delegation, a group of 35 samurai who were sent to Paris. On the way they made stops in China, India and Egypt. Their mission was to negotiate the closure of the port of Yokohama which had become a center for international trade against the wishes of the Japanese Imperial court.
• [6] In 1987 Ikegami was simultaneously working on Crying Freeman in Big Comic Spirits and Nobunaga in Big Comic Original Zokan. He would do another period piece a short time later with Samurai Crusader (王立院雲丸の生涯) in Shonen Sunday.
• [7] Gekiga Sonjuku was a manga "cram school" where Kazuo Koike, the writer of such iconic manga as Lone Wolf and Cub, Crying Freeman and Lady Snowblood helped train a number of manga luminaries before their debuts. Besides Rumiko Takahashi, other Gekiga Sonjuku alumnai include Tetsuo Hara (Fist of the North Star), Yuji Hori (Dragon Quest), Hideyuki Kikuchi (Vampire Hunter D), Keisuke Itagaki (Grappler Baki) and Marley Caribu (Old Boy).
• [8] It is difficult to say with certainty when Takahashi went to Mexico for the first time. She mentions Mexico fairly often in the table of content comments that run in the back of each issue of Shonen Sunday. In 1990 she mentioned going to a department store exhibition about Mexico and Mayan culture and then in 1994 she said she would like to climb one of the pyramids in Mexico which she had done by the time of this interview in 1997 (she also mentions having done this by 1996). In 2000 she mentioned having gone to Mexico "about a decade ago". She has continued to speak very fondly of the country in the years since. In 2016 she said that she would like to go back to the Mexican pyramids once again.
• [9] Hotoke-sama (ホトケ様) is a reference to a Buddha (not a particular Buddha). Essentially Takahashi is saying Ikegami is "enlightened" or to put it in a more Western phrasing, Takahashi is saying Ikegami is like a god to her.
• [10] Moto Hagio (萩尾望都) is best known for The Poe Clan (ポーの一族) and They Were Eleven (11人いる！/Juichinin Iru!). Takahashi and Hagio chatted with one another in an interview here. Ryoko Yamagishi (山岸凉子) is best known for Terpsichora (舞姫（テレプシコーラ）) and Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (日出処の天子). Both Hagio and Yamagishi are part of the venerable Year 24 Group.

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