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sakura gari
Sep. 24th, 2009 08:21 pmMan, this week has SUCKED. Work has been very very GAH, and there's nothing like insomnia to make everything worse. *sighs*
In any case, I have high hopes that Sakura Gari will end satisfactorily. I recently read an interview with Watase Yuu in an old issue of Pafu I'd forgotten to look at. XD; She had written the entire thing 7 years ago as a parody, for fun with her and her assistants. She had actually written a 650 page storyboard to understand how the two main characters had come to be who they were. She hadn't chosen a specific period when she'd first written it, but she was influenced by a movie called "Rampo" released at the time. So she liked that Meiji/Taisho/early Showa period, and more firmly chose a period when she did the storyboard.
She'd initially gotten suggestions to publish it as a doujinshi. The most common reaction from readers when the first chapter was released was of surprise. Many fans said they'd go along with her, but some couldn't follow a story with (blatant) homosexuality in it.
She felt like she was able to draw the negative aspects of humans that she couldn't in shoujo manga. The interviewer notes that though the manga has homosexuality in it, it's clearly different from BL. Watase-sensei responded that she wasn't very familiar with BL, so she wasn't conscious of the genre as she'd written it. She'd tried to do things differently from the shoujo manga she'd done before, and portray the Taisho period through the way she did the manga. She thinks of how she drew the manga as almost like a movie, like she'd taken a camera and filmed Souma and Masataka. She felt very moved by and involved with the characters while drawing it, and there were scenes she wished would hurry up and end as she drew them. She doesn't get as involved with all of her works, but she'd worked on this for 7 years so she felt like she really knew the characters. She felt bad for writing about them, like she was intruding on them and revealing their lives to everybody. She felt she had a responsibility to properly convey the character's feelings to the readers because she was invading their lives.
The scenes Watase-sensei found painful: Katsuragi and Masataka in the tea room (the criminal incident, as she put it) and the scene in the warehouse when Masataka and Souma's relationship totally breaks down.
The scene Watase-sensei liked: the fireworks scene and their interaction after that, though she did think it was rather heartbreaking when you consider what comes after that...She also liked the conversation between Masataka and his brother at the river and the harmonica thing, as it showed the sadness of brothers who care for each other but can't quite make things work.
The scene readers liked: when Masataka and Souma dance together at the party. Watase-sensei comments that she'd wanted to convey Souma's isolation and where the the two stood in that scene.
Watase-sensei notes that someone had suggested she publish a commentary book as each scene is filled with meaning. It'd probably be 1000 pages if she did write one.
Er...I didn't mean to write so much about the interview. It's kind of long and there's a lot of interesting crap in it that I'd like to mention, but I think I've lost steam. ^^; My main point is that I have more confidence that she won't screw it up after reading this interview.
In any case, I have high hopes that Sakura Gari will end satisfactorily. I recently read an interview with Watase Yuu in an old issue of Pafu I'd forgotten to look at. XD; She had written the entire thing 7 years ago as a parody, for fun with her and her assistants. She had actually written a 650 page storyboard to understand how the two main characters had come to be who they were. She hadn't chosen a specific period when she'd first written it, but she was influenced by a movie called "Rampo" released at the time. So she liked that Meiji/Taisho/early Showa period, and more firmly chose a period when she did the storyboard.
She'd initially gotten suggestions to publish it as a doujinshi. The most common reaction from readers when the first chapter was released was of surprise. Many fans said they'd go along with her, but some couldn't follow a story with (blatant) homosexuality in it.
She felt like she was able to draw the negative aspects of humans that she couldn't in shoujo manga. The interviewer notes that though the manga has homosexuality in it, it's clearly different from BL. Watase-sensei responded that she wasn't very familiar with BL, so she wasn't conscious of the genre as she'd written it. She'd tried to do things differently from the shoujo manga she'd done before, and portray the Taisho period through the way she did the manga. She thinks of how she drew the manga as almost like a movie, like she'd taken a camera and filmed Souma and Masataka. She felt very moved by and involved with the characters while drawing it, and there were scenes she wished would hurry up and end as she drew them. She doesn't get as involved with all of her works, but she'd worked on this for 7 years so she felt like she really knew the characters. She felt bad for writing about them, like she was intruding on them and revealing their lives to everybody. She felt she had a responsibility to properly convey the character's feelings to the readers because she was invading their lives.
The scenes Watase-sensei found painful: Katsuragi and Masataka in the tea room (the criminal incident, as she put it) and the scene in the warehouse when Masataka and Souma's relationship totally breaks down.
The scene Watase-sensei liked: the fireworks scene and their interaction after that, though she did think it was rather heartbreaking when you consider what comes after that...She also liked the conversation between Masataka and his brother at the river and the harmonica thing, as it showed the sadness of brothers who care for each other but can't quite make things work.
The scene readers liked: when Masataka and Souma dance together at the party. Watase-sensei comments that she'd wanted to convey Souma's isolation and where the the two stood in that scene.
Watase-sensei notes that someone had suggested she publish a commentary book as each scene is filled with meaning. It'd probably be 1000 pages if she did write one.
Er...I didn't mean to write so much about the interview. It's kind of long and there's a lot of interesting crap in it that I'd like to mention, but I think I've lost steam. ^^; My main point is that I have more confidence that she won't screw it up after reading this interview.
