When
she was a child, Mick Takeuchi loved Rumiko Takahashi's manga,
especially the Urusei Yatsura series. She always wanted to have her own
manga series, and reached that success in recent years with Her
Majesty's Dog, a story of a supernatural girl and the man-beast that
protects her. "I can't believe I've gotten this far," Takeuchi said at
an interview session. "Ever since I was thirteen years old, I wanted to
be an artist. I really loved the anime and the comics. I wanted to
create an anime or a comic or characters, and I want to have the
audience read my works." The series' lead character has the power to
make her wishes come true. "It has love scenes and action
scenes," "It's a shojo comic aimed at the female audience." But
it also has more action sequences than do most girls' comics, and it's
being sold now in the U.S. Did Takeuchi write herself into the story as
the lead character? "While the character doesn't look like me, there's
a part of me in every character," she answered.
To
emphasize the supernatural part of Her Majesty's Dog, Takeuchi headed
to Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capitol, to look into the history of the
unusual. "I went to Kyoto because it's a base for old history and the
Heian era. There was an `onmyouji' cult from Japanese history, and I
wanted to use that in my story. It's not based on nature worship, it's
based on all of society." The work paid off with a series that was
successful for five years, a success that was shown, as with all manga
series, from the positive comments of the readers. "I get fanmail that
says `Mana is very cute' or `Kohei is very cool' or they liked the
lines or the emotions in the scenes, and I worked from that." The long
series was assembled with the help of several assistants; Takeuchi
joked that one worked on background, one on screen tone, one cleans up
up the art and "one was to cook." How does she come up with her
stories? "It depends on what I think is entertaining. I'm striving to
work so that I can make entertaining stories all the time."
When
she was a child, Mick Takeuchi loved Rumiko Takahashi's manga,
especially the Urusei Yatsura series. She always wanted to have her own
manga series, and reached that success in recent years with Her
Majesty's Dog, a story of a supernatural girl and the man-beast that
protects her. "I can't believe I've gotten this far," Takeuchi said at
an interview session. "Ever since I was thirteen years old, I wanted to
be an artist. I really loved the anime and the comics. I wanted to
create an anime or a comic or characters, and I want to have the
audience read my works." The series' lead character has the power to
make her wishes come true. "It has love scenes and action
scenes," "It's a shojo comic aimed at the female audience." But
it also has more action sequences than do most girls' comics, and it's
being sold now in the U.S. Did Takeuchi write herself into the story as
the lead character? "While the character doesn't look like me, there's
a part of me in every character," she answered.
To
emphasize the supernatural part of Her Majesty's Dog, Takeuchi headed
to Kyoto, the ancient Japanese capitol, to look into the history of the
unusual. "I went to Kyoto because it's a base for old history and the
Heian era. There was an `onmyouji' cult from Japanese history, and I
wanted to use that in my story. It's not based on nature worship, it's
based on all of society." The work paid off with a series that was
successful for five years, a success that was shown, as with all manga
series, from the positive comments of the readers. "I get fanmail that
says `Mana is very cute' or `Kohei is very cool' or they liked the
lines or the emotions in the scenes, and I worked from that." The long
series was assembled with the help of several assistants; Takeuchi
joked that one worked on background, one on screen tone, one cleans up
up the art and "one was to cook." How does she come up with her
stories? "It depends on what I think is entertaining. I'm striving to
work so that I can make entertaining stories all the time."
