- About "Harenchi Gakuen": We started "Harenchi Gakuen" with the idea of making a comic based on messing around at a school. I liked the word 'harenchi' (scandal), which was always being used in advertising copy for adult movies. Scandal and school are like oil and water, so I thought mixing them would be fun and easily came up with the name.
- My heroines were types who would hide themselves behind the idea of masculine sexuality. That's why I drew them as incredibly strong characters. What I drew was not eroticism. It was all about Japan's culture of shame. The characters want to show what they've got, but they're too embarrassed to do so. It's all about the tug of war between men and women. I wanted that embarrassment to be the eroticism of the stories.
- The reason why I depict the effects of war in my comics is because I strongly believe that a person should learn from childhood how war can be destructive and how much people and societies may suffer from it, just the same way I learned it from the stories of adults around me when I was a little child.
- It's not much fun if you show everything, or if you give too much information. I prefer to let loose with a little bit and let the imagination do the rest.
- I must admit that I really like pictures of nude girls and that influenced the way I drew.
- The theme of Devilman is antiwar. When humans transform into devils and demons, what they really are doing is taking up murder weapons and embarking on war. I am the author of Devilman yet throughout its creation, I felt as though I were being pushed by an invisible power. There is no justice in war, any war, nor is there any justification for human beings killing one another. Devilman carries a message of warning, as we step toward a bright future.
- I start with my characters and a somewhat general idea of a central concept and direction, after which I become one with each character and basically go with the flow. I resist meticulous planning before writing and drawing. I, the author do not know the result until I complete an episode. A scene comes to me like one in a movie, and I work furiously to record it. With such a working method, it's not surprising that I would ask myself, "Hey did I really do this?" when looking at something I produced the night before
- There is a sense of Armageddon as we enter a new millennium. Global tension is high, and mankind seems to be on the brink of the final world war. Do human beings really have a bright future?
- If people say you can't do something, then you want to do it even more. Things that are considered forbidden, means other people aren't doing them yet!
- Japanese manga really has a lot of emotion. Taking into account the subtle differences between each panel, there's a lot of feeling which emerges naturally inside one's mind. That's what manga is about. With American comics, each page can stand alone as an illustration; but Japanese manga's "camera work" in respect of the characters' movements is very diverse. It doesn't just make the readers think of a paused frame. It does its best to make them feel that the story is in motion.
- Even if you create a fictional world, it still needs to be convincing. Regardless of how much the story escalates, or how large-scale it is, when there's an eating scene, people need to say "delicious!" or a girl needs to squeal and say "That's so embarrassing!" It's the accumulation of these emotional expressions that give birth to a convincing reality. Just like in "Mazinger Z", you can see the people who are harmed by the robots activities and it has amazing impact. Perhaps that part felt very fresh to them.
- Disney had a huge influence on the overall direction of Japanese manga.
- On his "Devilman" saga: At the end of the day, what exactly are devils about? Is it like a war, or something like that? After arriving at that point, we ended up going on to the end of the world!
- All creations are a "journey of the mind", which explores the creator's own inner world. If you treasure these dialogues with yourself, then I think you will be able to make something really original. Please do your best!
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