Sliding in at the end of the month is me, your tired translator and host! I've been sitting on this one for a really long time, but I finally got half of it done. (Half is better than none, trust me.) The interview is four "pages" long, but is quite wordy so I'm splitting it in half so folks can read some of it right away and keep the page from becoming too unwieldy. So what is this? It is as the title says --an interview with the head editor at Weekly Shounen Sunday --Takenori Ichihara and Shounen Champion's Shingo Takekawa. Champion recently celebrated it's 50th anniversary and to commemorate the event they took on the challenge of sitting down with their allies at Jump, Magazine, and of course Sunday. The interview was actually very informative and dare I say it, interesting! I'll have the second part out soon (I hope) but for now enjoy this first half.
(“The only four shounen manga magazines of their kind in the world. But we're not rivals –we're “companions”.)
“Sunday has the image of a 'Cool older brother' (Takekawa)
----You two meet on occasion and have drinks. During this time do you talk about manga? Or is it the opposite where you don't discuss work at all?
Ichihara: Manga is basically all we can talk about. (laughs). Our hobbies, and stuff like what cars we drive and whatnot never comes up.
Takekawa: If you take manga away from us there's nothing left, huh? (laughs).
---- As editors of Shounen Champion and Shounen Sunday, how much mutual awareness do you have of each other, if at all?
Takekawa: As the only four shounen manga magazines of their kind in the world, I'd like to say we're like allies. Each and every week we're thinking and feeling “What will they do now”as we read.
Ichihara: Champion is limitless in what it can do unlike other magazines, so it's not surprising that they get curious as to what it's up to. However what does it mean to have “awareness”? If one gets caught up in the thinking of “Oh so that's what those guys over there are planning” then it becomes more about rehashing their steps rather than something akin to “jealousy”.
Takekawa: Yeah, we're more about looking on at other magazines with a sense of pure reverence than jealousy.
Ichihara: If you mean awareness in that sense then there's nothing beyond professionalism, I think. After all we were reading all four magazines –including Jump and Magazine since we were kids.
Takekawa: Right? I want to say that for the most part manga editors have been reading and enjoying manga since they were children, and somehow ended up here. That's why it's not work to us, it's just expanding on what we already love.
---What are your impressions on each other's magazines?
Takekawa: My impression on Sunday now is the same as a long time ago. They're the “cooler older brother.” The series running Champion right now give the impression of being somewhat uneven I think –especially in comparison to the beautiful arrangement that Sunday has. Sunday exudes an aura of “Just relax and read”.
Ichihara: I'm not sure if having a beautiful arrangement is a good or bad thing. (laughs) For me, Champion's image is –well, it's more than a mere 'image', it feels like each magazine is on the level of a new civilization. It's incredibly rough, like concrete or gravel –a tough kind of feeling.
Takekawa: A rough feeling huh? (Laughs) Your praise makes me really happy.
Ichihara: You must have many difficulties in bringing about and maintaining that tough exterior, but it's a plus. The splitting image of Taizou Kabemura.
(Shounen manga's history is split between “Before Kabemura” and “After Kabemura”. --Ichihara).
---Champion's 2nd and 5th editorial chief was Taizou Kabemura. Champion went through impressive growth during his second stint in the 1970's especially –you could say that was it's first “Golden age”.
Ichihara: I love the history of shounen manga. During my first year as a new employee in Shogakukan, I read all of the documents between Sunday and Magazine. My impression at the time was even though Sunday and Magazine were born in 1959, they weren't really “Manga magazines” back then.
---Back then shounen magazines were way different than they are now. The covers featured baseball players like Sadaharu Oh and Shigeo Nagashima, and even ran novels. They're almost completely different than they are today.
Takekawa: The first issue of Shounen Champion featured the kick-boxer Tadashi Sawamura. It was a big deal to have stars from various circles featured in many magazines back then, huh?
Ichihara: The beginnings of Sunday and Magazine featured manga from the influential manga artists like Osamu Tezuka and Shotaro Ishinomori. In fact many amazing artists ran in these magazines, but it was an extremely slow build up for these magazines to feature manga exclusively. It's because the idea of a manga magazine was only beginning to form in the 1960's. Kiichi Toyoda who has since passed away was the first head editor of Shounen Sunday and he was said to have commented on the magazine that they didn't really know what they wanted to make at first. No one really had the know how to make a magazine directed to teenage boys after all. So the idea was to “somehow get together manga artists who seem like they'd make popular stuff”. They didn't have any particular quibbles with genre, since they didn't know what kind of manga would sell. --They just ran whatever they could for the first 10 to 15 years –gambling with trial or error.
---I see.
Ichihara: It was after that point that Magazine came out with “Kyoujin no Hoshi” and “Ashita no Joe”. “Joe” in particular was primarily read by folks in college. Which is why it's a misnomer to think that Magazine was only read by Elementary and middle school students. Ultimately it was Mr. Kabemura who made the distinction “This is what a magazine serializing manga for teenage boys should have”. For example –sports, action, occupational, comedy, and slightly perverted love comedies –it was Mr. Kabemura's personal aesthetic that all of these series run in one magazine. It was having all the things that middle and high schoolers like in one place like a kid's lunchbox that gave shape to how shounen magazines formed; especially as other magazines copied this format.
---Sunday and Magazine had already been around ten years by that time, but you're stating that it was Mr. Kabemura who gave birth to the current shape of Shounen magazines, then. It's true that in the 70's that we got manga like the baseball series “Dokaben” and the occupational manga “Black Jack”, as well as the slightly erotic “Cutie Honey”, school manga like “Yuuhi ga oka no Souridaijin” horror manga like “Ekoeko Azaraku”, gag manga like “Gaki deka” --famous works of various genres came one after another.
Takekawa: Mr. Kabemura has already passed way, but like Mr. Ichihara I've met many of the past editors in various get togethers. During the Champion 50th anniversary project, I was able to talk with the first head editor of Champion: Kyoumi Narita. Despite Narita being more senior than Mr. Kabemura, most of the talk was about Kabemura instead. (laughs) It truly does seem as if from it's roots on up that Champion is a product of Kabemura's influence. Of course Narita worked really hard to build Champion's foundations as a magazine –creating the first rails for the magazine to ride upon, and that alone deserves praise, but it was Kabemura's time as the second editorial chief that the roadmap to “what a shounen manga should be” really came into formation. Mr. Ichihara mentioned it earlier –it felt as if everything was lined up together in one place like a child's lunchbox. It's because of this that Jump, Magazine, Sunday all lined up to do the same and the age of shounan manga magazines began to take form at a thunderous pace and became the impressions we have of them now.
Ichihara: Shounen manga's history is split between “Before Kabemura” and “After Kabemura”
(Champion's forte is having many artists who put tropes into action. -Takekawa).
---Going back to your impressions, What is an element you'd say “I can't beat the opposition” in?
Takekawa: I try not to think too much about what I can't beat the opposition in. Rather than that I think it's more important to consider one's strengths and their individual characteristics. For example we talk about the creator's royal road, and how the editorial staff can get close to that person's style. That is how Champion has done things for a very long time. After all it is the creator who is coming up with the ideas. For example, the author of “Dokaben” Mr. Shinji Mizushima played grass lot baseball, the author of “Baki” Mr. Keisuke Itagaki was once in the self defense forces, and Mr. Wataru Watanabe who draws “Yowamushi pedal” rode bikes thousands of meters an entire year before starting the series. We have many authors in Champion who actually live on the front lines of what they draw and I believe that is the “knack” of Shounen magazine. Even now we've got some amazing talent –rather than thinking whether we can or can't outdo the opponent isn't important when there are other points to consider –Kentaro Satou said about the same thing when he appeared on “SASUKE” last year. Is that the same for you guys over at Sunday?
(TN- Kentaro Satou is the artist of “Magical girl site which runs in Monthly Champion.)
Ichihara: For Sunday manga, a good way to put it is that the series have a certain kind of refinement to them. It might be a slight bit of a depreciation to say this, but they're “adult-like”. Normally you'd expect a shounen manga protagonist to be full of energy and somewhat clumsy. The kind of character who would do anything to help out their friends and goes through many trials and tribulations to accomplish their goals. However, that's actually a rare trait to have in Shounen Sunday manga. Rather you have many protagonists similar to those in “Detective Conan” who are smart city folk instead. Rather than our forte, I'd say it's in response to readers over several decades who like seeing this kind of character. It's the way culture has built up the magazine over a long time, I think. I'd say Sunday can't really beat Champion or Magazine when it comes to rougher, tougher manga, but that's not what Sunday stakes it's name upon anyway. For example, I think it's essential for a series like “Baki” to be in Champion. It's a culture where each magazine has staked out it's own territory –for example if an American were to say “This Miso soup is delicious, but how about I stick this wiener into it”? It'd be a thing where “Maybe it'd taste good, but is this culture?”
Takekawa: Hahahah.
--- That sense of “This suits this magazine” do you think that's the artists at work? Or the editors?
Ichihara: Hmm. I'd say both.
Takekawa: I don't think the artists or the editorial staff are conscious of it themselves. “This is a Champion manga, so it's in shounen champion” isn't something people really think about. Rather, it just feels like in the end that's how things work out. It's surprising but I believe that the right manga artists will gather to the right place on their own.
(I think it's wrong to say “That editorial department let that artist slip away” -Ichihara.)
---On the subject of “Fitting a magazine's type”. For the sake of argument –what would you do if a artist fitting Champion's profile came to Sunday?
Ichiahara: It'd depend on what the editor of that applicant would want to do. (laughs.)
---True. Some might even think “It's because we don't have someone with this narrative style here that I want to serialize them anyway”.
Ichihara: That's right. There are people like that. For example, I'm really not a fan of delinquent manga, but Mr. Hiroyuki Nishimori's manga “Kyou kara ore wa!!” is an excellent match for the magazine. In that case it'd be widening our culture. There's not a need be narrow minded and think at all times. “Oh this is Sunday” It's when borders and preconception are widened that you get innovative new works. Like for example when “Death Note” started in Jump, I'm sure many thought. “Oh so Jump does this now?”
Takekawa: That was really shocking.
Ichihara: Jump's objective is to appeal to the grade school demographic, but “Death Note” isn't the kind of series they'd gravitate toward. However, it's not as if serializing it was a purposeful effort to “widen our audience”, rather someone just thought it was interesting and let it run. The audience growing as a result was seen in hindsight. Though there are many stories where an editor has said “Oh that artist came to our department and we told them they don't fit our image. In the end they went to a different magazine and I couldn't have imagined they'd become this popular”. From every magazine.
---It's quite the infamous story that the author of “Attack on Titan” went to a different magazine at first.
Ichihara: I feel like every editor has at least 10 stories like this. When hearing those kinds of stories I'm sure there are folks that say “How could you let that artist slip away, you idiot?!” But I think that's wrong. That editor had their own aesthetic, and made the decision “This artist won't do here.” Due to that they went to another place and were able to blossom. Different cultures will give birth to different cultivation –and the possibility that growth won't happen in the wrong environment is there.
Takekawa: And it's the artist themselves that decides which magazine they want to go to. So “slipping away” is a misnomer anyway.
Ichihara: Right.
(There's something irritating about Beastars....Ichihara).
---The “rough” Champion and the “Cool older brother” have differing narrative styles....so what is a work you'd want Sunday fans to read in Champion, Mr. Takekawa?
Takekawa: A series I'd want anyone to read in Champion right now would have to be without a doubt “Beastars”. The setting is a world of animals where the herbivores and carnivores are in conflict. The artwork is lively, and the diversity reflected in today's society is represented well in the series. I can say with confidence that it's a series that's on the cutting edge of Shounen manga nowadays.
Ichihara: It's a splendid manga. I can't really describe in words how good it is. I think the representation of human life is so well crafted that it's not just a good manga but a good story overall. Though because it's drawn by a human there are all kinds of limitations. That being said, it would come off feeling artificial if it was some cute girl avatar instead. So as a humanistic work, “Beastars” presentation is second to none.
Takekawa: Thank you so much. Ms. Itagaki will be happy to hear that.
Ichihara: There's something irritating about Beastars. Uh, maybe “irritating” isn't the right word....(laughs).
Takekawa: Please by all means talk about what irritates you. (laughs).
Ichihara: It feels like we've lost when it comes to this genre so “irritated” may be the best way to put it. (laughs). For a period of time, personification was a big draw, so I got to thinking to myself “It's time for us to personify something in order to broaden or media reach.” So if it were a Sunday like romcom, with personification as the core, then what I was thinking was a world where only the mens faces were dog-like, and then we'd have the female junior-high protagonist at a fast food place declaring “I'm so tired of shiba-inus!!” “For now on i'm all about Yorkshire terriers” as the serialization opens. The different breeds of dogs would have different personalities, so a world like that would have various means of presenting expressions and reactions, and would broaden horizons by quite a bit. However to create that world a real knack for expressiveness would be necessary as well as intelligence to get such a world to work. I was racking my brains to think of an artist with that kind of talent and then “Beastars” began. (laughs). It had already done what I wanted so now I couldn't. Character expressions, animal personification, all of them are covered so well in “Beastars”.
Takekawa: “Beastars” expressive techniques are in a field of their own, huh.
Ichihara: That's right. Moreover the art just continues to improve with each issue –it's truly surprising. From the first chapter until now the character's expressions and charm have become amazingly good!
Takekawa: The artwork was an impressive bloom from the very start.
Ichihara: Yes, the character artwork is powerful, like a picture of flowers. If there are flowers, then whether they're drawn well or not the design is there. If the design isn't well done then they're forgettable, so of course you want to make sure the design is on point. Well, it is our job to seek out these flowers and cultivate them.
Takekawa: Flowers huh? Artistic skill isn't an ability one is born with after all. There are different ranges and experiences. When I get in the bath and fall asleep after proofreading Beaststars thoughts of the next scene are all I can think of. It's incredible, it's flowers that leave a strong impression that you want to watch over.
Ichihara: Flowers take a lot of effort and skill to raise, so it's cruel when they don't live up to expectations.
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