While there
were two anime conventions in Canada on the Memorial Day weekend, one young
woman from Montreal bypassed both events to travel to North Carolina. The
reason was Yu Watase, the artist whose fan following spans oceans and continents
to bring her to Animazement. Watase seems especially at home at Animazement,
and expressed that sentiment during a Saturday panel. In a typical year,
Watase travels to a pair of North American conventions, the huge Anime
Expo in California and the smaller Animazement. Anime Expo is more like
a business trip for Watase, but Animazement lets her meet more fans, such
as the young woman from Montreal. Watase seems fascinated by the people
who travel to North Carolina, as shown by her stroll through the hotel
lobby on Saturday when she encountered a man wearing a fearsome-looking
Jin-Roh military costume. With a bemused look, Watase pulled out a camera,
took a picture and continued walking toward the room where her panel discussion
would be held.
Some musicologists
say that the secret of 19th-century classical composers such as Schubert
was that they used novels as their uncredited source for the drama and
pacing of their major works. Watase turns that concept around, saying that
she listens to music for story ideas, and some of those plot points showed
up in "Fushigi Yuugi" and "Ceres." But as popular as Watase has become,
she still has to deal with manga editors and publishers who dictate some
aspects of the stories she creates. "My challenge is to put my ideas into
a manga, despite all of the ideas the publishers want me to put in a story,"
said Watase.
Fans asked
Watase about the themes that recur in her work, ideas such as the supernatural.
"I like a story with a little bit of fantasy and reality mixed together,"
she said. Take the number of twins that show up in Watase stories such
as "Ayashi no Ceres" and her new "Alice 19;" Watase is fascinated by twins,
and joked that she wished she had a twin sister who could take some of
her manga workload. And the latest twin story, Alice 19," sounds interesting:
twin sisters fall in love with the same man and master the same spellcraft,
but one turns to the "dark side" and the sisters battle for supremacy.
"If you wait a little longer, some explanation will start coming out,"
she said.
While there
were two anime conventions in Canada on the Memorial Day weekend, one young
woman from Montreal bypassed both events to travel to North Carolina. The
reason was Yu Watase, the artist whose fan following spans oceans and continents
to bring her to Animazement. Watase seems especially at home at Animazement,
and expressed that sentiment during a Saturday panel. In a typical year,
Watase travels to a pair of North American conventions, the huge Anime
Expo in California and the smaller Animazement. Anime Expo is more like
a business trip for Watase, but Animazement lets her meet more fans, such
as the young woman from Montreal. Watase seems fascinated by the people
who travel to North Carolina, as shown by her stroll through the hotel
lobby on Saturday when she encountered a man wearing a fearsome-looking
Jin-Roh military costume. With a bemused look, Watase pulled out a camera,
took a picture and continued walking toward the room where her panel discussion
would be held.
Some musicologists
say that the secret of 19th-century classical composers such as Schubert
was that they used novels as their uncredited source for the drama and
pacing of their major works. Watase turns that concept around, saying that
she listens to music for story ideas, and some of those plot points showed
up in "Fushigi Yuugi" and "Ceres." But as popular as Watase has become,
she still has to deal with manga editors and publishers who dictate some
aspects of the stories she creates. "My challenge is to put my ideas into
a manga, despite all of the ideas the publishers want me to put in a story,"
said Watase.
Fans asked
Watase about the themes that recur in her work, ideas such as the supernatural.
"I like a story with a little bit of fantasy and reality mixed together,"
she said. Take the number of twins that show up in Watase stories such
as "Ayashi no Ceres" and her new "Alice 19;" Watase is fascinated by twins,
and joked that she wished she had a twin sister who could take some of
her manga workload. And the latest twin story, Alice 19," sounds interesting:
twin sisters fall in love with the same man and master the same spellcraft,
but one turns to the "dark side" and the sisters battle for supremacy.
"If you wait a little longer, some explanation will start coming out,"
she said. 
