Interview: Manga Artist and Illustrator Hiroyuki Asada [2/2]

Hiroyuki Asada revealed his sharp, professional sense of composition by stating that a line off by "just 1 millimeter" can compromise an illustration. Throughout the interview, Asada was smiling, relaxed, and very open to talking with us. In this second half, we’ll finish our discussion of his basketball manga I’ll and talk about his latest work Tegami Bachi, as well as his future as an artist.

【Hiroyuki Asada's Profile】
Japanese manga artist and illustrator. He made his commercial debut after submitting a one-shot manga, Hades, to a manga competition in Weekly Shonen Jump and receiving an award for it. In 1996, I’ll began serialization. His current manga series, Tegami Bachi, is being published in Jump Square magazine.

”I wanted to bring back that special ‘manga’ energy.”

TOM: After I'll finished it's run, you made PEZ, and then started Tegami Bachi. The art style of Tegami Bachi is completely different from I'll. What's the reason behind this change?

Asada: The background drawings for I'll were done after I actually did some research on location. Because it's set in modern times, everything in it exists in the real world; I just had to go and look for it. In order to depict the daily life of a high school student accurately, I wanted to know everything down to the type of basketball sneakers they wear, or don't wear. But the more I strived for that level of accuracy, the more I worried about not getting it right. Even when drawing a gymnasium, there are so many angles and perspectives to consider, from the position of the players to the relative height of the hoop. I would do a rough sketch of the court on a little piece of paper and put the players and hoop in their respective places. Then I would make an enlarged copy of it and use that to make one frame. As I was doing this over and over, eventually it became difficult to keep drawing. It was really strenuous. In the beginning, I was doing 60 pages per month, but by the end I could only do about 25 pages.

I wanted to renew my creative approach, reset my sense of distance from the work, and feel free to use my imagination. I wanted to bring back that special "manga" energy - that's how I started to feel. I thought, "It's OK to make the ball appear bigger, right? Who cares if they're wearing strange-looking sneakers." I wanted to draw a world by my own rules. This led me to the conclusion that I had to do a fantasy work, so I started to keep track of the various ideas that I came up with. While Tegami Bachi was still unfinished in my mind, and I drew PEZ and searched for different designs and forms of expression as I went. Looking back on it, it's clear that PEZ was a pilot for what would eventually become Tegami Bachi.

TOM: Tegami Bachi's story is focused on a postal delivery worker. Was this choice of setting a kind of wish fulfillment?

Asada: It was. Because it's a shonen manga, it needed to include the vanquishing of enemies and a certain sense of accomplishment, so I added those elements to the story as I went. I got back the unique manga energy that I was looking for. I really enjoy drawing Tegami Bachi. I don't fret too much about getting the pictures just right, and instead I draw a lot. In the first episode, I drew 120 pages. After that it went down to 41 pages, and recently it's been slightly fewer than that.

TOM: When you're concentrating, do you lock yourself in your office and just draw continuously?

Asada: When I'm doing the first full draft, yes. When I do the storyboarding, I'll often just be in my living room until late at night, playing with my cats. A little bit of distraction helps me come up with new ideas. It also lets me look at the story more objectively, so I think that this method is appropriate to the work I'm doing now. If I project my feelings too much and put my own grown-up thoughts into it, I feel like it will not longer be a true shonen manga.

TOM: I feel like your works not only focus on the story itself, but also the use of color. In I'll, the main characters are contrasted in black and white, and the backgrounds tend to have a sense of transluscence. What are your preferences in terms of color?

Asada: I like darker colors. When I did I'll, all the colors were painted by hand. Even if I wanted to make a color darker, I was often restricted by the deadline and therefore couldn't afford to make any mistakes. Now I use Photoshop for coloring, so it's just a matter of adjustment. When drawing PEZ in full color, I used Photoshop to make color screentones. It's just adding color to it, but you don't need a pen, just a pencil to do touchups to the preliminary sketch, so the atmosphere still comes through on the screen. With colors, I prefer something that's noisy rather than clean. I'm not very good at using many different colors in the same picture, so I often pick one tone and add contrasting colors to it.

”I want to continue my life as a manga artist.”

TOM: I'll was made into an animated movie, and Tegami Bachi has had three seasons as a TV anime. What do you think about the animated adaptations of your work?

Asada: I purposefully made Tegami Bachi a work that could be easily adapted into an anime. When I first started it, I was in my late 30s, so I thought that it might be the last shonen manga I would do. If that was the case, I wanted to make something that kids would really enjoy. Even now, I continue to draw in the hopes that children will read my work. I often worry that something I've done was the wrong choice, or that it was too difficult for young readers. I've been constantly pursuing my idea of the perfect shonen manga with this work. I was genuinely happy when Tegami Bachi was made into an anime. I'm still in touch with the performers and voice actors that I met through the anime. When considering the future of my career, I'm glad to have made these connections.

TOM: As you get older and have different experiences, would you say that the style of your work changes too?

Asada: It does change. I've been doing shonen manga my whole career, but I think that work I did in my early 20s was actually the most "grown up." After that, it gradually became more youthful. I think this could be because I intentionally tried to do shonen manga that I wanted to draw. In the future, I'm interested in doing manga directed at adults, but I'm also considering doing the opposite and trying to do something for young children.

TOM: So you will continue to work as a manga artist?

Asada: Yep. That's all I can do. Until I turned 30, there was a part of me that thought if I were to quit drawing manga I could just get a part-time job at a convenience store. But now I definitely want to continue working as a manga artist. When I complete anything, even if it's a single illustration, in my head it's a manga. It might sound strange, but I think that anything I do, even a piece of writing, I feel that it's a manga. As long as people will read what I do, I want to continue my life as a manga artist.

TOM: Do you have anything to say to the readers of this article?

Asada: I've always done my work with the hope that it will leave something in the heart of those who read it. I hope that you will become familiar with my manga, and that you can find something in it that will stay with you.

Pez - Limited Edition Luxury Box Set

This is a Tokyo Otaku Mode original article.