If
you become a wildly popular manga artist such as Yu Watase, you'll get
this sort of special treatment, where a manga based solely on your
works is published. At Animazement, Watase showed fans the inaugural
edition of the Fushigi Yuugi manga released in Japan a month before the
North Carolina convention was held. It's a big, thick book in the style
of the popular monthly manga anthologies, but dedicated only to
Watase's Fushigi Yuugi series. The publication of the book is strong
testament to Watase's popularity and effectiveness as an artist and
storyteller. Fushigi Yuugi is so popular that a series of novels, based
on the manga, have been commissioned by another writer (although Watase
notes that some fans disagree with the story lines told in the novels).
But the fushigi Yuugi book meant a big increase in Watase's workload,
since she had to draw a 101-page story for the book, a process that
took weeks.
Typically,
a 30-page episode of a Watase manga takes a couple of weeks and a
half-dozen people to create. It centers around Watase, who must come up
with the story and its outline, through sketches in a notebook.
"There's a lot of scribbling in the notebook; the scribbling is called
the plot," said Watase. Then comes the series' editor, who must approve
the story. "Then the actual manga starts to take shape," she continued.
"You have to divide a page into panels. For some reason, the japanese
jargon is `name' - it's not your personal name it's just jargon, it's
the manga equivalent of the anime storyboard." That work takes several
days, and "I don't like being interrupted during work on the `name.'
There are certain manga artists who are capable of going to a crowded
cafe and continuing to work. I just listen to music while I work - an
objective person might say I'm weird." The result must be checked by
the editor. Disapproval restarts the process, but approval means the
real work of manga creation begins.
Comics
production for top artists in the U.S. and Japan is an assembly line
process, but the Japanese style is different from the American system of
penciller, inker, colorist and writer. Watase is the lead artist among
a group of workers; she starts by penciling the main characters in a
series. Her four assistants handle minor characters, backgrounds,
effects, screen tones and shading. Watase still relies on pen and ink,
using old-fashioned nub pens called G-pens and round pens that must be
dipped in an inkwell. It takes five days to draw an episode of a Watase
series, and the procedure must be done twice a month. "There might
people in Japan who think the whole process is a piece of cake: it's
not. It's hard work. For example, to get a page done, it might take ten
hours of sitting work. Of course, we take breaks to eat, but there are
some manga artists who work around the clock, taking three hour nap
breaks. There are ambitious manga artists who have two or three serials
going simultaneously. They're practically commuting to the hospital and
taking IV's all the time. I'm certain they're hoping for a break, but
crying and continuing to work."
But
Watase would be most unhappy if she no longer had the challenge of
storytelling and the opportunity offered by a blank piece of paper. "I
can perceive it as a blank slate for creating a whole new world,"
Watase said at a Saturday interview session. "It's a place that I can
populate with live characters. It's a tough thing to do, but it's
rewarding and fun. If you took it away form me, I would be very vexed."
Part of the challenge is to go beyond the girls' comics practice of
romantic stories. Watase realizes that she has to put romance in her
stories to appeal to her audience, but she also wants to find new
stories that will appeal to them. Watase's link to another Animazement
guest, actor Chika Sakamoto, comes from the Nuriko character in Fushigi
Yuugi that Sakamoto voiced. "In the beginning, he was supposed to be a
transgendered character for the comic value, but the character
developed in the best way possible, to be a real character. When I got
to watch Nuriko as an animated character, that's when the character
grew to be a real character," Watase said.
If
you become a wildly popular manga artist such as Yu Watase, you'll get
this sort of special treatment, where a manga based solely on your
works is published. At Animazement, Watase showed fans the inaugural
edition of the Fushigi Yuugi manga released in Japan a month before the
North Carolina convention was held. It's a big, thick book in the style
of the popular monthly manga anthologies, but dedicated only to
Watase's Fushigi Yuugi series. The publication of the book is strong
testament to Watase's popularity and effectiveness as an artist and
storyteller. Fushigi Yuugi is so popular that a series of novels, based
on the manga, have been commissioned by another writer (although Watase
notes that some fans disagree with the story lines told in the novels).
But the fushigi Yuugi book meant a big increase in Watase's workload,
since she had to draw a 101-page story for the book, a process that
took weeks.
Typically,
a 30-page episode of a Watase manga takes a couple of weeks and a
half-dozen people to create. It centers around Watase, who must come up
with the story and its outline, through sketches in a notebook.
"There's a lot of scribbling in the notebook; the scribbling is called
the plot," said Watase. Then comes the series' editor, who must approve
the story. "Then the actual manga starts to take shape," she continued.
"You have to divide a page into panels. For some reason, the japanese
jargon is `name' - it's not your personal name it's just jargon, it's
the manga equivalent of the anime storyboard." That work takes several
days, and "I don't like being interrupted during work on the `name.'
There are certain manga artists who are capable of going to a crowded
cafe and continuing to work. I just listen to music while I work - an
objective person might say I'm weird." The result must be checked by
the editor. Disapproval restarts the process, but approval means the
real work of manga creation begins.
Comics
production for top artists in the U.S. and Japan is an assembly line
process, but the Japanese style is different from the American system of
penciller, inker, colorist and writer. Watase is the lead artist among
a group of workers; she starts by penciling the main characters in a
series. Her four assistants handle minor characters, backgrounds,
effects, screen tones and shading. Watase still relies on pen and ink,
using old-fashioned nub pens called G-pens and round pens that must be
dipped in an inkwell. It takes five days to draw an episode of a Watase
series, and the procedure must be done twice a month. "There might
people in Japan who think the whole process is a piece of cake: it's
not. It's hard work. For example, to get a page done, it might take ten
hours of sitting work. Of course, we take breaks to eat, but there are
some manga artists who work around the clock, taking three hour nap
breaks. There are ambitious manga artists who have two or three serials
going simultaneously. They're practically commuting to the hospital and
taking IV's all the time. I'm certain they're hoping for a break, but
crying and continuing to work."
But
Watase would be most unhappy if she no longer had the challenge of
storytelling and the opportunity offered by a blank piece of paper. "I
can perceive it as a blank slate for creating a whole new world,"
Watase said at a Saturday interview session. "It's a place that I can
populate with live characters. It's a tough thing to do, but it's
rewarding and fun. If you took it away form me, I would be very vexed."
Part of the challenge is to go beyond the girls' comics practice of
romantic stories. Watase realizes that she has to put romance in her
stories to appeal to her audience, but she also wants to find new
stories that will appeal to them. Watase's link to another Animazement
guest, actor Chika Sakamoto, comes from the Nuriko character in Fushigi
Yuugi that Sakamoto voiced. "In the beginning, he was supposed to be a
transgendered character for the comic value, but the character
developed in the best way possible, to be a real character. When I got
to watch Nuriko as an animated character, that's when the character
grew to be a real character," Watase said.
