Sugiura Shiho interview translation

[insaneneko]

Being insane as usual, I translated the Sugiura Shiho interview that was in the November 2005 Pafu. Well...I only translated the first half that was of interest to me. The second half was about the artist, and I frankly don't really care about personal details. :P At least...not enough to translate it. I worked on this for the last couple of months at work and finally gave up on it. I could work on it forever. I don't think I'm really meant to translate interviews...In any case, some cool insight into Silver Diamond, as well as some references to Koori no Mamono no Monogatari. XD



Character conception over ten years ago!


Q: Your new series, "Silver Diamond" (hereafter called "SD"), started right after your long-running series "Koori no Mamono no Monogatari" (hereafter called "Koori no Mamono") finished.

S: After having fun for about ten days with friend(s), my vacation was over (laugh).

Q: Did you actually want to have fun a bit longer?

S: About a month (laugh).

Q: Were you flooded with gratitude that you were able to finish the long series?

S: Yes, I received a considerable number of letters from readers after the series finished, and I was glad to have written it. And I was happy that I was able to properly finish it.

Q: Koori no Mamono was your first series, yet it was 24 volumes--25 volumes with the side story volume.

S: I think that it may have been a plus that it was my first one. There were many choices I could chose freely from, so it was more enjoyable to come up with the story back then. Koori no Mamono simply became longer as I wrote it. SD has a structure that is the opposite of Koori no Mamono, so it's hard...

Q: What do you mean by the opposite structure?

S: In the case of Koori no Mamono, it began as a one-shot. I then fleshed it out. Creating the story felt like I was making it bigger, like heading outwards from the center of a vortex. In contrast, SD is like starting from the outside and heading towards the center, solidifying things as I go. To me it is the complete opposite.

Q: Were you thinking of SD back when you were serializing Koori no Mamono?

S: No, not at all...But all of the storyboards I initially did were rejected, you know. There was just one panel that was praised, the scene where Chigusa is holding the gun made of wood. I decided to do a different story that incorporated this scene.

Q: SD wasn't that kind of story from the beginning!?

S: I had an attachment to the characters since I'd worked on their designs from long before, but the story is completely different.

Q: The characters were born over 10 years ago when you were still a high school student, right?

S: I came up with them back when I was just playing around and having fun creating original characters in the school manga club. My friends at the time asked me to use them in a manga someday.

Q: What kind of story did those characters appear in then?

S: Mmph (Sugiura-sensei can't help but burst out laughing)

Q: Mmph? (laugh)

S: The truth is that I found the club book that contained the story before SD started serialization, so I decided I might as well read it, but...

Q: But?

S: It was so painful. It was a manga that a young person would draw (laugh).

Q: It was full of youthful passion?

S: That's right. It was a story about exorcising demons. I had drawn two chapters when graduation came up, so I drew the third one as the last chapter. The part I couldn't draw was in digest format...I thought, "Wow, this writer is awful" (laugh).

Q: But those characters did see the light of day.

S: They really haven't changed from back then. Of course there are parts that have changed, but for the most part they were like that back then.

Q: About how far did you foresee developments when SD began?

S: Basically, I didn't have [much] time before it started, so I managed to come up with just the foundation: that the world was a desert, that there was an enemy, that the main character's abilities were this, that the enemy's abilities were that, and that the final goal was to make the desert green. I started with only those fundamentals determined. I thought since it was set in a desert, I could have things buried in the sand (laugh).

Q: Such farsightedness (laugh).

S: My own mind couldn't follow the creation of the story, partly because I didn't have the time.

Q: Did you originally have the premise of two opposing princes in mind?

S: Yes, there were two princes in the painful manga I drew in high school...and that is what I'm drawing now. I took only the basics from that story. I wanted to draw princes at least once in my life (laugh).

Q: Strictly speaking, the characters you had come up with in high school were Rakan and Chigusa and...?

S: I also brought over the Prince and Narushige from the old story, and the rest were added as the story developed. I don't know when I came up with Kinrei, the Prince's aide.... (laugh). I don't really remember thinking him up. I probably sort of created him the moment I came up with his name.

Q: Did you have any problems with the characters?

S: I ended up changing Chigusa's character quite a bit [within the story], and he was hard to grasp. He was a rather unemotional type, and because he was like that I couldn't understand him easily. Until around volume 3 I had to think very hard when I drew him. I finally felt like I more or less got him by then. Everyone else is fairly normal, so it's working out.


I usually think three or four chapters ahead


Q: Speaking of characters, it's a peculiarity of that world to use the same kanji in their given and family names, such as Senroh Chigusa and Shigeka Narushige.

S: I am really bad at naming characters, so I thought if I made a custom like that it'd be easier because I'd only have to come up with one kanji. But I've ended up hampering myself with that decision now.

Q: Do you enjoy coming up with the framework of a world, such as customs like that or things like having unnecessary children in a clan given names with numbers in them like Tohji (Second light) or Miya (Third night)?

S: I don't really like to. Even when I come up with something, I'll use it only if I look ahead several chapters and it looks like it'll work. Because I'm partly creating the foundation [of the story] as I draw SD, I add to it by coming up with various ideas and storyboards.

Q: Do you normally think ahead several chapters when coming up with the storyline?

S: Yes, I have something like a map, or maybe more like a future roadmap, in my mind. I can't create storyboards without knowing about what will happen in the future, so I create them with a goal that is several chapters ahead, or something far ahead in the story.

Q: And that's not limited to SD?

S: I've done that since Koori no Mamono. I couldn't draw [a chapter] if I didn't write out the plot of three or four chapters in some detail. As for SD, I've finally been able to see the entire picture recently, so now I think about the story with that mental map in my head.

Q: Since you are drawing the story while thinking about the future, it doesn't seem like you'd have problems with unexpected developments cropping up.

S: There are some. There was a tone I liked that I was using on a character's clothing. But a battle was more fierce than expected and the clothes were torn. I was sad, thinking "I wanted him to wear this longer!!" (laugh) There are quite a number of unexpected things like that.
I love tones, and have many tones I particularly love. So when I can no longer use one because of some minor change, I end up feeling sad (laugh).

Q: Other than not being able to use your beloved tones (laugh), are there other things regarding SD that give you trouble?

S: ...That the world is dark? (laugh) I thought that if I make it too painful a world, it'd become hard to read as well. So I want them to suffer as little as possible, and go about their business as enjoyably as possible. But because it's a desert, in order for them to go about their business enjoyably they'd have to grow their own flowers....there aren't flowers in the scenes (laugh).

Q: Are there things you enjoy in drawing SD?

S: It's fun thinking up things so that the readers can enjoyably read it, as the world that it's set in isn't that great.

Q: As if you're massaging your strategy?

S: Yes (laugh).

Q: You said earlier that Chigusa was difficult to grasp, but are there other characters that you found hard to draw?

S: In general, everyone other than Chigusa is easy to draw. With Chigusa, it was hard because I couldn't draw his expressions if I didn't understand him. I didn't have that problem with the other characters very much.

Q: In contrast to Koori no Mamono, where the story moved forward around the two characters Ishuca and Blood, in SD there are more major characters, aren't there?

S: It's fun. There's lots of slapstick (laugh).

Q: It seems like the balance between the four is very good. No matter what happens, they seem to be having fun.

S: Yes (laugh). I plan on keeping it fun until right before the end.

Q: ...Did you just casually make an explosive comment?

S: (laugh) The two princes have to confront each other at the end, so no matter what there will be serious developments. I want to draw all of that at the very end, and keep the fun atmosphere for as long as possible.

Q: Since you have finished putting together the general outline of the plot of the entire story, we can't help but wonder how much longer it will be.

S: I don't know exactly how many volumes it will be yet, but I think it will be less than Koori no Mamono (laugh). In Koori no Mamono, there were a lot of pages given to Ishuca worrying, but since I don't think Rakan will be worrying that much there'll be that many pages less.

Q: In your works, there are characters that have an emptiness inside where they are lacking something, regardless of whether the character wants it that way or not, such as Blood in Koori no Mamono, Chigusa in Silver Diamond, or Icchan in Isagi-Kojima. And there is a character that fills that void, such as Ishuca or Rakan. Do you have some kind of hankering to include this situation in your stories?

S: I think it's something like a habit of mine when I create stories. It's probably easier for me to write when a character like that is in it. To fill that missing part in a character is fun, and I like seeing a character with a deficiency become a rounder person as they change.

It's not that I'm sympathetic to characters like that. If I become too involved with the characters I won't be able to write the story, so I watch myself

Q: Are you drawn to characters that lack something?

S: Perfect people are boring. In that respect, I like deficient characters. I like personalities and individualities that are created with something lacking....And it may be that I feel a fascination about them (laugh).

Q: I personally like that kind of deficient character, but since as a reader I can't do anything for them, I end up yelling "Please, Ishuca!” or "Help him, Rakan!" In the end, I do like the yin and yang, the combination of a person who is lacking something and a person who will fill that lack.

S: (laugh) I try to have the two main characters appear in the manga in a friendly way. But they have to get along really well or else they won't stay together. So then I try to make their relationship deeper instead of just superficial, and it ends up with one of them having a terrible deficiency.

Q: Particularly in SD, besides Chigusa there are many characters that have had their existence rejected by the world, such as Narushige and Tohji, as well as the frontier garrison. Rakan becomes important to them because he affirms [their existence]. It's impressive that Rakan is treasured not just because he's a prince or a savior.

S: That's because it feels awkward if he's made much of just because he's a prince. I like princes who fight, so....

Q: You want them to take action.

S: Yes, that's it. Be useful to everybody (laugh).

Q: So we'll be watching Rakan in action from now on, thinking "Do your best Rakan!" (laugh) As for the manga, will you be progressing towards the climax from now on?

S: Yes. In the series I've done until now, the story continued from chapter to chapter but I think the readers would enjoy the one-short or two-part format more. And so I want to have the story progress in a bunch of one-shots. I think I will be able to incorporate a lot of little ideas, so I look forward to that. When it comes to the point where I feel that I have to conclude it soon, I plan to wrap it all up.

+++++

I just enjoy reading how author's think about their works, what mindset and attitudes they have towards the manga and the characters. I can imagine just how bad her original manga was...you know how angsty people can be when young. XDXD

The presents for readers in this issue included signed drawings by Sugiura-sensei...while I love Rakan, the Chigusa one had me drooling. I love that black background and him looking so cool:

Comments

[chrysan.livejournal.com]

*_* I really enjoyed this interview. XD Thanks for translating!

It's things like these that really make wish that I could read Japanese... ;_;
Unless the publisher includes the interview into the translated manga, I'll never know this interview ever happened too.

^^

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

You're welcome! I so want to read more of this series now...

I'm sure many Japanese readers miss out on interviews like this, too. I just happen to get a magazine that does lots of interviews.

[modorenai.livejournal.com]

whoa, I didn't know Koori was her first series! It's amazing that she she was allowed to stretch it out to 25 volumes, then - that's pretty rare. Then again, maybe it's just a case of a mangaka being so amazingly talented that this happens - my favourite shounen manga ever, Samurai Deeper Kyo currently still running), is the first work of its creator as well. :)

And it's interesting to find out that her original concept for Silver Diamond was completely different from what she initially intended, especially since I can never imagine the story it is now being any different. :p. And I'm quite surprised that she said that she was making some stuff up as she went along and that she only thinks a few chapters ahead since everything seems so well-thought out that to me I thought she had most things already planned from the start. :p

Guess all this proves is that Sugiura-sensei really is a genius. :p

(And I SO totally agree with you about the Chigusa drawing. *drools together with you*)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

I didn't know Koori was her first series, either. She certainly started out with a bang. Though I can see where her simply "adding to the story" shows...the story certainly meandered a bit in the middle. Good thing she managed to pull it all together for a great ending.

I fear her original concept...youthful angst can be pretty scary. ^_^ I'm glad she reworked it to allow so much humor and silliness. I was surprised that she had started the series off with so little, but at least we can be assured that she knows the outline for the rest of the story now and is guiding the story there. It'd be scary if she happily admitted that she has no idea what she's doing now.

[modorenai.livejournal.com]

It's actually pretty interesting to learn that it's possible for a person to start out with just a small handful of ideas and then expand the story from there later. I've always thought that stories with grand complicated plots were all already carefully thought out right from the start, but I guess this isn't always the case. :)

[insaneneko.livejournal.com]

A good number of series start as one-shots that end up being expanded, so I knew it's common enough to not have thought out some grand, complicated plot before starting a grand, complicated story.