INTERVIEW: Takehiko Inoue in 2007
Pulled from the archives, a short interview with Takehiko Inoue to compliment this week's episode of Mangasplaining
Hello readers! Christopher here with a little treat for all of our subscribers. This week on Mangasplaining, we’re reading our first book by one of the living legends of manga, Takehiko Inoue. With his works Slam Dunk, Vagabond, and this week’s title Real, Inoue-sensei is an artistic force in Japan, most recently co-directing the big-screen adaptation of his manga with The First Slam Dunk. It’s a great episode, and it’ll probably be in your inboxes shortly after you read this.
While we were talking about Real, I mentioned that I had actually gotten to meet Inoue-sensei briefly, and them remembered that the interview I conducted with him was never published anywhere. Seeing as we have this Substack now, what better place to put a cool little interview than here?
This interview was conducted in November, 2007 in Kinokuniya Bookstore in New York, at a private media event celebrating that store’s official grand opening. Takehiko Inoue was on hand and painted several illustrations from his series Vagabond on the walls of the Kinokuniya. It’s a short one, as interviews conducted through interpreters usually are (I was given 15 minutes, but at least half of that is for translation between Japanese and English, and then back to Japanese), but I still think there’s a few good soundbites here and some interesting insight into his creative process.
Also following the interview, I’ve included my original blog post, complete with pictures, for the context of this interview. Please enjoy!
Interview: Takehiko Inoue (2007)
Interpreted by Andy Nakatani, VIZ Media
This interview has been edited for clarity.
Christopher Woodrow-Butcher: It’s very nice to meet you. My first question is: How are you enjoying being back in America? You lived here for a year, right? How are you feeling right now?
Takehiko Inoue: I'm very relaxed. It’s fine you know, you know you knew that I lived here for a year, yeah. I come every once in a while to the United States to come spend some time. I’ve actually been to Toronto as well.
CWB: Oh wow, that’s amazing. Any time you want to come back up, we’ll take you to Niagara Falls. It’s wonderful. [laughs]
How do you feel looking around and seeing manga becoming so important to Americans?
Takehiko Inoue: I'm very surprised. When I lived here before, manga was only in specialty shops and comic shops. I'm very happy to see manga in big stores, but I'm pretty surprised.
CWB: Your own artistic development between Slam Dunk and Vagabond is phenomenal. Like, the style has changed, and even within Vagabond your style is always changing. It seems you're striving to get better with everything you do and it’s wonderful… but I don’t see that here with a lot of other mangaka. What drives you to constantly improve your craft?
Takehiko Inoue: I get bored very easily, and so it’d be very painful to continue to draw the same drawings for such a long time, so…
CWB: I've visited your website (1), which is wonderful. In the forum section, there are many fans who want Slam Dunk 2, Slam Dunk 2, Slam Dunk 2, Slam Dunk 2.
Takehiko Inoue: Yeah.
CWB: How do you feel about going to revisit old work like that? Is it something you're interested in?
Takehiko Inoue: I'm very pleased to hear comments like that and I appreciate very much my supporters who say, you know who comment, that they want Slam Dunk 2. But, I'm not the same person that I was when I drew Slam Dunk, and uh… it’d be difficult… Readers have expectations that I’d be doing the same kind of work, that they’d want the same work from me now.
CWB: Right. Well you're doing Real now and Vagabond, and because of the US translation [and publishing] issues, because things come out here at a different time than they do in Japan, so you're going to have something like ten years’ worth of different work all coming out at the same time. (2) You'll have Slam Dunk, and Vagabond and Real. How do you feel seeing older work next to newer work at the same time? Are you proud of old work or are you sort of embarrassed about it or do you wanna focus on the new work, how do you feel about seeing this different stuff?
Takehiko Inoue: It’s a good question. An interesting question.
I wouldn’t be able to say that it’s zero, that I have zero feelings of embarrassment. For some artwork that is coming out I feel, I prefer it not to be… So to be blunt at the beginning of Slam Dunk, my art was not as good as it is now. But, there are things that I drew then, like how I felt when I was drawing it, or the passion I had, at that time, that art expresses well. So if I had the opportunity to draw it over again I wouldn’t do it.
CWB: Speaking of your art style, it is very detailed and expressive, your brush work is wonderful. Do you feel that not having a more ‘traditional’ manga style actually enables you to do things like your advertising work for “Shiseido?” (3) To do different kinds of projects?
Takehiko Inoue: Yes, I do think that. By drawing Vagabond, it really expanded opportunities for me. For example drawing on this wall [here at Kinokuniya], and of course the “Shiseido” commercial.
CWB: How do you feel about character goods? I mean behind you right now on the racks there’s Astro Boy and Blackjack merch. When I was in Japan, there wasn’t a lot of merch of your stuff. Instead it was more about your manga and your art books and your actual work; it wasn’t about toys and animation so much. How do you feel about licensing your work out?
Takehiko Inoue: So the main issue I feel is my art style. It’s difficult to change my artwork into actual merchandise. For example, for Hanamichi [lead character of Slam Dunk], if something with his image was made into some kind of merchandise, if there was a slight difference to it… It’s no longer Hanamichi. So… I’m often not satisfied with the way things turn out with merchandise so I’d prefer not to do it.
CWB: Do you read manga? Do you enjoy manga?
Takehiko Inoue: A little.
CWB: Can you talk about who you like?
Takehiko Inoue: There's 3 manga artists who I have been influenced by: Mizushima Shinji, Ikegami Ryoichi, and the third is Kobayashi Makoto. (4)
CWB: Wait, Kobayashi Makoto… The author of What’s Michael?
Takehiko Inoue: Yeah.
CWB: Haha, Yeah, that’s great, he’s great. I really loved his manga Club 9, that was really fun.
So now, Slam Dunk is coming here, and I think it’s going to be very popular. Basketball is very popular here. Do you think it will succeed here in America the same as in Japan? You're very famous in Japan for Slam Dunk. Can you walk down the street in Japan or do people recognize you?
Takehiko Inoue: Not yet. [laughs]
CWB: Good. [laughs] Do you think it will achieve the same level of success in North America though?
Takehiko Inoue: I don’t think the numbers will be the same. Because in Japan, there are manga artists before me, who created the path, and created a deep culture of manga in Japan. They laid the path for me. So… I don’t think the numbers will be the same here.
CWB: Do you think that manga on the whole will ever be similar in terms of depth and in terms of sales and in terms of things like that, in North America as it is in Japan?
Takehiko Inoue: I think there is a chance, yes.
CWB: That’s excellent, thank you very much.
Takehiko Inoue: Thank you very much.
(1) Although it has changed significantly since 2007, Takehiko Inoue’s website at https://itplanning.co.jp/en/ is still pretty great.
(2) Slam Dunk was actually being re-released by VIZ, as announced at this event. The title was first released in English as part of the RAIJIN Magazine experiment from Gutsoon Entertainment. That magazine folded, those volumes went out of print, and it took some time for it to come back from VIZ in the Shonen Jump line.
(3) The Japanese mega-cosmetics brand Shisedo did several commercials featuring the work of Takehiko Inoue. Some of them featured Inoue-sensei himself.
(4) I regret not following up on this more, but the creators that Inoue mentioned are the recently deceased Shinji Mizushima, creator of the classic baseball manga Dokaben and untranslated into English; Ryoichi Ikegami, creator of Crying Freeman, Mai The Psychic Girl, Sanctuary, and many more translated to English; Makoto Kobayaashi, creator of What’s Michael? and Club 9.
We’re covering What’s Michael soon, too! Keep listening.
Now for my original walk through at the grand opening of Kinokuniya’s New York flagship store in November, 2007.
Takehiko Inoue in New York
November 20, 2007
Hey everybody! I just got back from the reason for my little sojourn to New York, a rare in-store appearance of manga-ka Takehiko Inoue, author of Vagabond, Slam Dunk, and Real. The event was part of the opening ceremonies for Kniokuniya Books’ new store location on 6th Avenue across from Bryant Park, and it featured an original mural from Inoue-sensei, and a swank little cocktail party followed. I… I actually got to interview Inoue-sensei and I found him to be a charming, thoughtful creator and it really was a once-in-a-lifetime interaction. The results of my interview will be making their way online in the next little while, but I did take a ton of photos of the event that I’m gonna share with you here… enjoy!
Kinokuniya’s new location is lovely, and packed to the gills with manga and anime. The location was decked out in Viz schwag and featured a rather nice Inoue boutique selection.
The centerpiece of the event was this giant mural that greets customers at the top of the escalator. According to reps, each wall took about 3 hours to get to the stage you see them at, and the lower-right side of the standing figure (and the characters eyes) would be finished during the event, in front of an audience.
Fewer attendees picked up on this much smaller painting in the stairwell… but it’s pretty darned great.
Before the event got underway, Inoue-sensei gave a number of interviews which should be making their way onto the internet momentarily. From l to r, Takehiko Inoue and Viz Editor and translator Andy Nakatani.
The show got underway, with Inoue-sensei mixing up his paint and getting ready to finish his mural.
I can think of fewer things more terrifying than trying to paint a mural to be seen by thousands, and doing it while 30 people are constantly photographing you.
Following the completion of the mural, representatives from Viz addressed the audience, announcing that in addition to the launch of Inoue’s Slam Dunk in the Shonen Jump line, Viz will be releasing Inoue’s wheelchair-basketball saga REAL this summer, and will be reformatting Vagabond this fall into an omnibus edition that will collect 3 standard-sized volumes in each new volume, as well as releasing both of Inoue-sensei’s artbooks in English language editions. Inoue then addressed the audience directly thanking them for coming, and enjoying his work. Then we toasted! Bubbly for everyone.
Audience members included indie cartoonist and SVA Professor Tom Hart, and SVA Prof and soon-to-be-Dad Matt Madden.
Towards the end of the evening super-fabulous designer Chip Kidd arrived and the two artistic gurus conversed and bonded over the galley Kidd brought with him of his new book for Pantheon, a collection of Adam West-inspired 1960s Batman manga! (It looks absolutely AWESOME, by the way.) [Edit: This would come to be Jiro Kuwata’s Bat-Manga]
Then, like all good things, it came to an end and it was time to go. I snapped a few photos of the finished murals on the way out.
Congratulations to Kinokuniya on a fabulous new store, and to Viz throwing a wonderful bash celebrating the work and career of Inoue-sensei, a wonderful creator. I’m looking forward to even more-stuffed bookshelves in the coming months.
Wow, blast from the past there. I found 4-5 other interviews in there from around that time period. I’ll work on getting them online soon. :)
Thanks for reading,
Christopher (2023)