He's
more than a little lecherous, he solves most of his cases, he gets beat up
the worst by his female friends - and he was created by Tsukasa Hojo. The
hard-working manga artist drew Ryo Saeba's tales in the City Hunter manga
series for years, took a decade off to work on other projects and restarted
the series a couple of years ago. "I really don't have a single inspiration,
other than having to finish a deadline," Hojo told a Big Apple Anime Fest
panel. When asked how he creates a story, Hojo says "I write a few things,
I think about a few things and one day, it comes - poof! - out of the air."
Of course, there's a lot more to the story process than that, involving editors
and assistants, but the bulk of the hardest work comes from Hojo. When he
gets rolling on a manga project, Hojo works eleven hours a day, seven days
a week, and gets his seventeen-page weekly quota done on time.
American
fans are struck by how sexy Ryo Saeba's adventures are when compared to U.S.
comics, but Hojo's stories are considered moderate in Japan, noted Hojo and
his U.S. publisher from Gutsoon and Raijin Comics, where the translated City
Hunter series is published. Most of City Hunter's Japanese fans are said
to be female, and one reason might be that Saeba's female assistant gets
to hit him in the head with frying pans and a hyperhammer. "I wanted a way
to show the woman's anger, and if she just kicks him it's not funny, but
the huge hammer is funny," explained Hojo. Through the series, the label
on the hammers kept getting heavier to keep up the humor. The source of those
hammers remains a mystery, of course.
Nearly
every year, this site encounters Akira Kamiya, the original voice of the
animated Ryo Saeba. The anime City Hunter has been dubbed into English, and
Hojo has had a chance to listen to Kamiya's English-language counterpart.
"Manga is a world without sound, and everyone has a different image of how
it's going to be," Hojo said about the voice acting in the City Hunter anime,
"I've only seen the American version once, and I was surprised that the actor
for the American version sounded so much like the Japanese version. But,
the French actor doesn't seem to suit Ryo Saeba."
He's
more than a little lecherous, he solves most of his cases, he gets beat up
the worst by his female friends - and he was created by Tsukasa Hojo. The
hard-working manga artist drew Ryo Saeba's tales in the City Hunter manga
series for years, took a decade off to work on other projects and restarted
the series a couple of years ago. "I really don't have a single inspiration,
other than having to finish a deadline," Hojo told a Big Apple Anime Fest
panel. When asked how he creates a story, Hojo says "I write a few things,
I think about a few things and one day, it comes - poof! - out of the air."
Of course, there's a lot more to the story process than that, involving editors
and assistants, but the bulk of the hardest work comes from Hojo. When he
gets rolling on a manga project, Hojo works eleven hours a day, seven days
a week, and gets his seventeen-page weekly quota done on time.
American
fans are struck by how sexy Ryo Saeba's adventures are when compared to U.S.
comics, but Hojo's stories are considered moderate in Japan, noted Hojo and
his U.S. publisher from Gutsoon and Raijin Comics, where the translated City
Hunter series is published. Most of City Hunter's Japanese fans are said
to be female, and one reason might be that Saeba's female assistant gets
to hit him in the head with frying pans and a hyperhammer. "I wanted a way
to show the woman's anger, and if she just kicks him it's not funny, but
the huge hammer is funny," explained Hojo. Through the series, the label
on the hammers kept getting heavier to keep up the humor. The source of those
hammers remains a mystery, of course.
Nearly
every year, this site encounters Akira Kamiya, the original voice of the
animated Ryo Saeba. The anime City Hunter has been dubbed into English, and
Hojo has had a chance to listen to Kamiya's English-language counterpart.
"Manga is a world without sound, and everyone has a different image of how
it's going to be," Hojo said about the voice acting in the City Hunter anime,
"I've only seen the American version once, and I was surprised that the actor
for the American version sounded so much like the Japanese version. But,
the French actor doesn't seem to suit Ryo Saeba."
