The Eastern Edge

Had another file hiccup that made this late - sorry! - but here's part 5...

Q： That’s a pretty direct Americanization. You could even say vulnerable.

Urasawa： When I spoke with Mr. Kentaro Takekuma, he sort of said that the vulnerability I have toward America has an uncomfortable feeling about it. I was told that for "first generation otaku" like Mr. Takekuma, their spiritual pillars are that, first of all, Disney is the enemy, and that Japanese animation is superior. But he said that kind of anti-Americanism could have been a reaction to the kind of longhaired, guitar-playing guys out to impress girls like I was (laughs). That’s why Otaku consider “20th Century Boys” to be toothless, because it lacks criticism of America. …It’s really interesting, isn’t it?

Q: Isn’t that just Mr. Takekuma’s story? (laughs)

Urasawa: He makes you think that, but he's serious. I bet it would have made him happy if America had come to save the world and got trounced by ‘Tomodachi’ and the “Earth Defense Army” (laughs). But for me, I just don’t have that kind of anger or distain for America so it [the story] wouldn’t develop that way.

Q: In “20th Century Boys”, does the United States of America even really exist in any substantial way?

Urasawa: I see what you mean...
But there is the moon rock at the Osaka Expo, and the “Bob” in Bob Lennon, so as far as I’m concerned there is a strong sense of America’s existence in there.

Q: This is unrelated to what we were just saying about Mr. Takekuma, but how have you faced up to “other people’s evaluations” up to now.

Urasawa: That’s quite a difficult problem. When I broke in with “YAWARA", there was a long period where the critics and commentators turned up their noses. I think originally I had the same kind of intentionality* as them, though. But, I thought, “I have to do something major to get my foot in the door!” I worked as hard as I could and managed to produce a hit, but it was completely ignored by the people whose evaluations I wanted the most. At the time I said that I didn’t care, but I always felt sad inside (laughs).
So, right after I finished “YAWARA”, I thought I should create something closer to my original intentionality. However, because of the overwhelming support that “YAWARA” received, people wanted something with a similar flavour from me. Of course, I could possibly have just ignored that, but at the time the truth is I also thought, “Well, I’ve got plenty of time in my life as a mangaka”. There are things to be thankful for in that [people wanting more of what they liked from you], too.
But still, in my next work "Happy!" while still having tennis as subject matter, I intended at the same time to challenge myself with a new type of expression…
Anyway, I had finally begun “MONSTER”. After 10 years as a mangaka, at last I got to begin creating the comic I’d envisioned. The critic, Mr. Fusanosuke Natsume apparently said, “How Naoki Urasawa had the patience to wait 10 years to do the comic he wanted is a mystery.”

Q: So how did you find the patience?

Urasawa: Maybe it’s because I spend that time in the track club, when I endured the completely uninteresting task of running all the time. (laughs)

Q: I see (laughs)

Urasawa: You could say that for me, the “game” started with MONSTER.
Whatever the case, Mr. Natsume told me that while reading MONSTER, ”20th Century Boys”, and “PLUTO” it made him feel something, and when he re-read “YAWARA” he realized that, “Urasawa has been doing the same thing all along!” and he had to go back and reevaluate my work.

Q: While I was doing research [for this interview], I looked through past literature and I found that there really were almost no critiques of your work. Right around the time you were making your debut in the early 80’s, the “New Academism”** movement of the new student commuters and intellectuals was happening and syncing with pop culture, a trend which had a major impact in the field of manga criticism as well. For a mangaka who could take pride in such outstanding sales, I think it [your case] is an anomaly. On the other hand, you could say it’s an inexhaustible topic of conversation and extremely rare, so did that play a role in you continuing as a mangaka to this today.

Urasawa: Yeah, that might be a factor. Because, during that time, I saw all the so-called intellectuals going around using big words I’d never heard of and going on about all kinds of difficult topics, but I always thought that Beat Takeshi had it right. The fact is, that if we look back now, there is little doubt that Beat Takeshi did have it right***.

Q: We were talking about Kazuhiro Otomo earlier, and I think that he was exhaustively critiqued in that sense. I feel that the problem when it comes to Mr. Otomo begins with the fact that he was a mangaka who was discussed more that his work was actually read.

Urasawa: There may possibly have been that too...
But, I don’t think Mr. Otomo considered himself to be that kind of mangaka, so it could just be that he got caught up in that somehow.

Q: I feel that you still have a strong will to maintain a distance, maybe even more than you did in the past, from the all consuming world of the intellectuals, much like you distanced yourself from the New Wave scene.

Urasawa: Well, There are a lot of things going on. (laughs).
However, when it comes to the New Academism and the Otaku culture that followed, from the stand point of someone who did physical training running in the track club and doing push-ups, it’s true that I always felt strongly that armchair culture, in which you don’t use your body or sweat, was just no good for me. I probably feel even more strongly about that now.

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NOTES:

* Intentionality = http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality
** "New Academism" - refers a social science, cultural movement of students and intellectuals in early 80's Japan.
*** I’m unsure of exactly what he is referring to, but Beat Takeshi was hitting it big in the late 70’s early 80’s with his gritty, “low brow” style of comedy. Uraswa appears to be mentioning him as a counter idea to intellectual movement. Beat Takeshi is a giant in the entertainment industry, he is well respected and continues to be a regular on Japanese television (i.e. he obviously did something right).

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The next question in the interview completely changes the subject to talk about Tezuka and "PLUTO" so I thought this would be a good place to cut it off for the final installment. There’s a lot of text and some illustrations in the final pages, so it’s going to be a big final part.
I expect to have that ready in about 3 weeks to a month from now.

By the way, a commenter pointed out an error in part 4, in which I misinterpreted the meaning of “Ocha no ma”. It means basically “audience”, and has nothing to do with how quickly readers consume his work. I think the talk of Billy Wilder and how people consume and then just forget his work lead me on that train of thought. Sorry about the mistake, folks, and “thank you!” to the person who kindly pointed it out to me.

I will go back and fix that after part six, when I intend to review all of the text, fix any mistakes and smooth it out, and then collect all six parts into a single PDF complete version.

I’ll try and run down the final stretch as fast as I can and get this done.

Until then…