| Hiroshi Aro never wanted to be a salaryman in Japan. From childhood,
he wanted to be a manga artist. Aro spent much of high school sketching
his ideas, starting many a manga series and leaving them unfinished. Inspired
by artists such as Go Nagai and Osamu Tezuka, Aro got his wish and works
as a professional manga artist with one full-time assistant and two part-timers. |
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| Aro's works are part of the manga flood that submerged Japan every
week. One of Aro's titles rose above the rest and drew the attention of
hard-core fans in the U.S., a story about a high school student who changes
from male to female which his emotions rise. Futaba-Kun Change drew so
much underground fan support that Studio Ironcat decided to release it
in translated form in the U.S. The release of the first issue coincided
with Otakon and Aro's trip to the convention. |
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| Futaba-Kun change is not "another Ranma 1/2," according to Aro. "I
was curious; if a boy was in a female body, what would he do?" Aro said.
"The theme is the anguish that a boy has because he possesses bodies of
two genders." `Anguish' might be a bit too strong of a term to describe
Aro's series, which is broadly played for comedy in the beginning. Only
a few of the stories in that series come from Aro's high school experience;
he made up the rest. |
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| Aro, who enjoyed reading Superman and Spider-Man comics as a child,
was pleasantly surprised to find how many Americans were interested in
his works. That artwork takes a long time to get out of Aro's head and
onto paper, despite his assistants. Unlike most artists, who sketch out
an entire page and its panels at once, aro insists on completing one panel
before moving on to the next - and that slows him down. |
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