【Interview】 2022 Jump Festa Chainsaw Man with Tatsuki Fujimoto. Look Back

Interview on the [Chainsaw Man] stage at Jump Festa 2022.
This is a dialogue content interview between the author, Tatsuki Fujimoto, and the editor in charge, Shihei rin.

Quotes エンタメ日和

chainsaw man.　(World’s largest number of translations)

スポンサーリンク

Interview　Jump Superstage EX　Tatsuki Fujimoto

Rin: Good evening, everyone. I’m Shihei Rin from Shueisha. From here on in.
Super Stage EX [Chainsaw Man], so it’s time for us to talk about [Chainsaw Man].
I’d like to talk a lot with Fujimoto-sensei to give you a deeper understanding of [Chainsaw Man].Mr Fujimoto, please hello’ to you today.

Fujimoto: nice to meet you

Rin: I think we meet about once a month on average?

Fujimoto: Well, yes, we had meetings for [the (manga) Look Back] and so on, yes.

RIN. We used to meet once a week when we were working on [manga] Chainsaw Man, and although it was less than then, we had a lot more time to talk slowly compared to then.

Fujimoto: Yes. We definitely met at least once a month.

Did Tatsuki Fujimoto’s life change after his weekly serialisation ended?

Fujimoto: I moved out and was able to go to the movies and stuff. In the second half of the serial I couldn’t even go to the cinema because of the Corona pandemic, and I thought it was fine because I could watch it on Amazon Prime or Netflix, but After all, I have had feeling that I want to see it at the movie theatre. Now that the series is over, I have more time to spare, so I have more opportunities to go to the cinema and watch films.

Did the two of you decide where Fujimoto-san would move to?

ＲＩＮ: Yes. Well, it was based on chatting, but we talked about where we would like to move to. When I heard that they had decided where to move, I thought, “I’m glad. The last work I drew before I moved out was (manga) Look Back.

Winner, Harvey Award 2021, Best Manga Category.

ＲＩＮ:As soon as I received the news that I had won the award, I immediately contacted (Fujimoto). I said to him, “I’m so happy you did it.”

Fujimoto: To be honest, I don’t really understand what the Harvey Prize is (laugh).
…… but you can’t say that, so I’m happy …… … I’m happy to receive the Harvey Award …… …

ＲＩＮ: (Chuckles)

Chainsaw Man How it came into being.

Chainsaw Man　Where did the idea come from?

RIN: The very first idea for Chainsaw Man came from looking at the illustrations of a certain character. ・・・・

Fujimoto. There’s a lot I can say about that story, but I can never talk about it, can I?　(copyright issue)
If you talk about it, it’s all pretty bad, and if you talk about the things you can talk about. design is there first. Basically, I think that MANGA in which the design is ahead of the story is bad because the story structure is not very good. But with Chainsaw Man, I wanted to do a story where he (copyright issue) comes out, with an emphasis on design.

So, Mr RIN said, “It’s okay to use him as long as you put him in the villain role.”
But I really wanted to use him(copyright issue) as the main character. That’s how it all started.

RIN: The very first thing about that story, if I remember correctly, was.
“I think it would be difficult to make this the main character because it looks like a villain.” I asked him.
My perception at the time was that it would always be in the comic in its chainsaw-man state.
I asked him about it. He said, “Don’t worry”.
Then I said, “Let’s go with that” and we moved on to storyboards.
I don’t remember how many patterns there were in the storyboards.

Fujimoto: There were many patterns before the current manga was created, but in the end we decided to use the current pattern, which had the highest drama quality.

RIN: There were probably between 10 and… no, there must have been around 20 storyboards. If we said we had a problem with a certain part, we would usually fix it the next day, or the day after that, and we would exchange these ideas as we worked on the first episode over and over again.
I think the first episode was the longest (time taken to finish).

The existence of demons born from human fear

Fujimoto: I liked it a lot horror films a lot, so I thought there would be a lot of things I could quote or pay homage to.

When you continue to work on a series, you only have a day or two at the most to think about storyboarding, and what you can think about and what comes out of you during that time is very limited, so it’s definitely better to have a drawer full of things in your head… I had a drawer full of horror films, so I thought that if it was something that made me stronger through fear, then a lot of it would come out of me, so that’s how I set it up.

ＲＩＮ: In the early days of the Chainsaw Man series, we were talking about what in this world scares us. I remember that we often talked about things like “that is scary/not scary”. Fujimoto-san, you used to ask your assistants. “What’s scary?” I remember that.

Fujimoto. Yes, I did. I used to talk about that with rin-san and others in the café.

ＲＩＮ: We talked about that all the time. What is ‘scary’ in the first place? What else is there to be afraid of when you list the scariest things as if they were obvious? Like…We thought that the word we chose might become a character, and at that stage we weren’t thinking about anything in particular, we were simply talking about putting up a list of scary things in order.

Response from readers at the start of the series

Fujimoto: We didn’t get much time to start up the manga, so we didn’t have time to work on the story, so we had to think about what would happen afterwards while we were making the manga, so we were so busy that we didn’t have time to follow everyone’s reactions while we were drawing [Chainsaw Man]. I think so it’s probably the same for other Jump artists.

ＲＩＮ: In my previous work [Fire Punch], there’s no such thing as slow, so I was able to work on the story quite a bit, but with [Chainsaw Man], the moment Serialisation was decided, I was presented with a deadline, and that was one word for how bad it was.

Fujimoto:Is it a two-month start-up period for a serialisation?

ＲＩＮ: I don’t think it was two months, because I didn’t have time to talk to Fujimoto-san slowly about his reaction to the first episode, and we didn’t spend more than an hour in meetings, and I’d talk to him, and then he’d say, ‘Well, I’ll make it into a Storyboard’ and that would be it.　You were cornered at that time weren’t you?

Fujimoto: Yes, my life was such that as soon as Rin-san said “I understand”, I would go home and start drawing. It was tough. It was fun.

ＲＩＮ: It was fun, but Fujimoto-san was kind of tense (laugh).

Fujimoto:I think it was good stress, yes.

Characterisation

Fujimoto: The only characters who still have their settings from the beginning are Denji and Makima, but everyone else has a different feel.
HIMENO’s character setting is all in a different place from where it is now, and HIMENO was really supposed to be Denji’s buddy, Aki’s sister, and there were other settings like that.
I think she was probably ‘supposed’ to live longer.

Character design.

Rin: We went over and over the design of Aki’s appearance.

Fujimoto: Also, Kobeni-chan wears more earrings than she does now.

Rin: I’m torn. Which one do you prefer? and you showed me the characters side by side.
What should I draw and how is it cool to draw? There were also things like that.

Fujimoto: When I showed Rin-san the designs of Denji, Aki and Power-chan, I was asked to make it more like Yotsuba&! I didn’t really know what I was doing, so I drew Jumbo and Fuuka from Yotsuba&! I drew a picture of Jumbo and Fuka and sent it to them, and they said, Yes, it should be like this.”Oh no, this is…!
If I didn’t do it like that I’m going to be Jumbo and Fuuka! So I changed it to a totally different’direction.

ＲＩＮ

Rin: For me, it’s the most fun to watch Denji.

Fujimoto: I think Denji would be fine. Yuji kaku also said that he likes denji.

Rin: I would have liked to have seen more of Arai-kun or something like that, but ・・・・
I thought it would be interesting if we delved deeper.
But he died… (laugh) It’s sad and wistful.

Fujimoto. Which do you want to live, Kobeni or the angel devil? I asked rin-san who he wanted to live, and he said it would be the angel devil. Then I thought that if the readers probably thought so too, then it would be better to kill the angel demon.
In fact, the angel demon was supposed to be where Kobeni is now, but because of rin-san…

Rin: (Speaking of that) You asked me that. ・・・・. When I saw what happened after that, I really thought, “Oh my God!” (laugh).

Death of a character without a flag

Fujimoto: I think that if a character has a drama and there are signs that they will end without achieving it, or that they will achieve it and then end, then you know that they will die. I felt that this was too completed as a ‘death’, and I thought that a character like Arai, who I mentioned earlier, could probably have been explored more, but I thought that if such a character died, it would be closer to an actual real-life ‘death’.

However, there are characters who are killed off with proper drama, but I don’t really like that, and I remember killing them off even though I thought that such a way of death would probably look better in the manga if I were to work in Jump.

The set up that the existence of the name of the devil that Chainsaw Man ate disappears

Fujimoto: I don’t know where to go with this, but at the time we were already talking about making a second part. In the second part, I wanted to use a setting like “the food that Chainsaw Man eats disappears” or something like that.
That was the story that started there. ………
Rin-san: I’m not allowed to say too much more, am I?

Rin. Yes, I didn’t make that setting purely for that reason, but I was working backwards, looking ahead to the future.
I think we were already talking about it (the second part) when we were about six or seven volumes in.

The story of the Rezé Arc and the build-up to the climax

Fujimoto: Before [Chainsaw Man], I was thinking of a story comic called [Ibuki], and the heroine’s name for that was Reze.
Come to think of it, there’s also a manga I’ve been working on in my head for a long time before I go to bed, and that’s Reze.

Rin: Like the story you’re working on before you go to bed… (Chuckles)

What I wanted to draw in the Lese version

Fujimoto: When we thought about what kind of story we wanted to tell next, we wanted to tell a story where Denji meets a woman other than Makima, falls in love with her, and is forced to break up with her by Makima. So I made a story like that, but I didn’t want it to be too obvious or for to guess that it was a story in which Makima forces Denji to break up with her. So I decided to put something completely different in the story.

There’s an anime film called JIN-ROH, which I mixed in with the story and made it confusing.
There are some parts that are quite similar to the motif of [Jin-Roh]. In [Werewolf JIN-ROH], the main character’s story begins with a scene where a girl dies in an explosion, and the posing is quite similar to Rezé’s, and many other things are similar.

Was the Conception to the end of the story decided from the beginning?

Fujimoto: You had a rough idea of the story up to the end, didn’t you?

Rin: We had a rough idea of what the story was going to be about. Do you want the story to look roughly like this? When I talked about it, Tatsuki sensei often said, “I think I understand,” and left.We had discussions about whether we should be talking in that direction.
We talked about a lot of things together.

Fujimoto: Once the characters of Makima and Denji were introduced, I think it was probably an unchangeable ending.

Rin: We were told that we had about this many volumes to go before the final story, and I remember that we had been talking about how to close the story for several volumes before (the final volume).
That scene in the fridge… eating.
During the meeting, I said that it would probably be impossible.

Fujimoto: I only drew the storyboards and gave up the work, and said that if I couldn’t do it on Jump, I could put it on Twitter or whatever, but Hayashi-san said that was absolutely not kind I wondered what would happen if I didn’t answer the vehement protest phone call from Mr Hayashi, so I ignored his call once! (laugh)

Rin: ignored me…! (laugh)

Fujimoto: I was kind of excited about it. I didn’t have a rebellious period, so I felt like I was delinquent, and I was like, “Oh my God! I’m having fun!” I thought at the time (laugh).

Rin: I still remember the meeting at that time. Then we decided to put that plot aside for a while.We talked about coming up with a different plot, and we came up with two or three different ideas.

Fujimoto: It was terrible, too. (Fujimoto was terrible at that time.

Rin: That was terrible, too, but he said, “Okay, I’ll go with your idea” and left with a look on his face like he was sure he wouldn’t go with that idea (laugh).

Fujimoto: Yes, I was going to ignore it.

Rin: I felt like I was willing to ignore it. When the new storyboards came, I remember thinking, “I knew it! But in the end we said, “Let’s go with your idea”.

What was the gun demon?

Fujimoto: I think [Chainsaw Man] is interesting in part because I don’t dare to talk about it, so that people can imagine it.
（I’m going to answer (but it’s an opportunity to do so). The complete gun demon had legs and bones, but it also had flesh and bones, and when I collected only what the US possessed, it looked like that form.
I wanted to combine that with the feeling of America being known as the ‘land of the free’, and I also wanted to combine that with the feeling of guns in America today. I came up with that design.

How did readers react to the ending of the last episode?

Rin: I think the reaction of the readers was very positive and not as negative as we had feared.

Fujimoto: rin-san said something like, “You should be prepared for the possibility of being beaten up by the readers”, and I was “thinking” of going somewhere to hide… (laugh).

Rin: As I recall you told me that I shouldn’t worry about it anymore, didn’t you? He said I should forget about it (laugh) and that I should stay cooped up somewhere too.

Fujimoto: I told him that I would repeat this kind of thing in the future and that I wanted him to get used to it… (laugh)

Looking back again at the public safety section of season 1

Fujimoto: I understood that even if I “directly” did the expressions and direction that I like, they would not be popular in JUMP, so I incorporated them into the work as if I was putting a piece of poison in a hamburger. I think of “Chainsaw Man” as that kind of work for me. The first part is my “impression” that I did only that kind of thing. I feel like I’m making dramas that I don’t like that much in order to put what I like on the page.

But when I tried drawing dramas, I found that they were surprisingly interesting, and there were many discoveries in the first part. I think I grew a lot inside myself.

About the results of the character popularity contest

Fujimoto: I thought the result of Yoshida-kun’s popularity vote would be lower. Then, when the assistant told me that Yoshida-kun was popular, I wondered for the first time why he was popular. I didn’t see any backbone to the character at all.

「Excerpts from the 2nd Character Popularity Poll Results」

Rin: Is it sex appeal? He has some room for imagination. One of the interesting customer impressions was that Yoshida would die if he played an active role, so they asked me not to bring him out (laugh), and I thought, I see. I want to say thank you so much for everyone’s love for the various characters.

Fujimoto: Yes. That’s right.

Rin: And Mengo sensei (Mengo Yokojari, a manga artist who has nothing to do with the work, entered for some reason). I am simply grateful for that. I thought it would be different to remove her. from the entry. If the person who is voting for me exists, I guess that’s fine. I thought it would be a bit of a no-no if it was the name of a character from another work.

Fujimoto: Yes, copyright-wise.

Rin: Yes, copyright-wise. I thought it would be okay if it was the writer.

Tatsuki Fujimoto’s recommended works

Fujimoto: I recommend the Netflix version of “The Grudge: House of Curse. Yuji Kaku and I talked about this for a day. I like it very much. It was great. I was so impressed by the way the film was shot, and I thought that if someone who is good at filming is conscious of the composition, the story can have so many pauses and become interesting. I could probably talk about this forever. I was always talking to rin about what kind of video was interesting.

Rin: We certainly talked about “The Grudge. Kaku-kun was at the pub with us, and the three of us talked about it.

Fujimoto: We talked about 「Ju-On」 the whole time.

Click image to jump to video↓　

Rin: Every time we met, we would watch the trailer or something, and I would say, “I’m looking forward to seeing that. If everyone had seen the movie, they would talk about it. On the other hand, after hearing about it, I sometimes end up watching the movie because I am curious about it.

Fujimoto: I like to watch trailers, not only for movies. I don’t play video games at all, but I like to watch game trailers. There is a YouTube channel called “Cinema Today” that posts a lot of trailers, so I “watch” them and if they are interesting, I go to the theater.

Rin: That’s why Mr. Fujimoto receives many requests to watch movies and give comments. You have been watching a lot of movies lately.

Fujimoto: Yes, I appreciate that. I can watch movies for free.

Rin:　[Psycho Goreman], is that a little okay?　 It was as much notice as I thought. I sent the trailer of “Psycho Gore Man” to Mr. Fujimoto to see if it would be okay, and he replied, “It looks interesting, so I’ll watch it. Mr. Fujimoto watched it, and for some reason a picture came up, even though it was originally a job of textual comments (laugh).

Fujimoto: It was interesting [Psycho Gore Man]. I was impressed by the way he did what I wanted to do with [Chainsaw Man] but didn’t have the courage to do, didn’t have the courage to do. Recently, [Midnight Mass] was very interesting. I can’t say too much about what was interesting because it would be a spoiler to say so.

Rin: I think it would be interesting to hear spoilers, but, well, the viewing experience is completely different.

Fujimoto: Yes, I think it’s better not to give spoilers.

Click image to jump to video↓

Interesting manga I’ve been reading lately

Fujimoto: Recently, I really like [High School Family].

Rin: Even though it’s your company’s manga.

Fujimoto: Yes, isn’t it easy to use for advertising? (Laugh)

Rin: It’s rare “on the contrary” to choose your own company’s manga (laugh).

Fujimoto: It’s a funny gag, and it’s a funny drama. The father, mother, and sister come into the same high school as the main character, and I think the reality level is low at that point, but then you get into the coming-of-age part and Only when you start making a proper drama, the reality level rises and the level of the drama goes up. That’s what makes it so interesting and I recommend it.

Rin: It’s a kind of gap that you don’t see in everyday life (laugh).

Fujimoto: I’d rather you watch it from scratch than spoil it for me by saying anything about [High School Family].

Rin: Mr. Fujimoto has “probably” read quite a few manga, and the ones he recommends change every time we meet. I think it was only last week that he started mentioning Families of High School Students.

Fujimoto: Recently, I’ve been recommending [Families of High School Students].

Rin: Do you also enjoy Chiba sensei’s serials?

Fujimoto: Yes, Chiba-sensei’s [One Day Slacking Diary] is also interesting.
And “Welcome Back Alice” is also interesting.

Stuff. Taiyo Matsumoto’s “Tokyo Higoro” was very interesting.

Fujimoto: Yeah, it was interesting.

Rin: I wondered if the view from Mr. Matsumoto’s point of view was like that.

Fujimoto: I had never heard of such a story from an editor’s point of view in a manga before. It was interesting.

Tatsuki Fujimoto: Steps to becoming a Manga Artists

Why did I become a manga artist?

Fujimoto: I wanted to do some kind of creative work rather than become a manga artist. I thought I would never be able to do a normal job. I had trouble concentrating, and I was kind of “that kind of person”…. Everyone tells me that if I hadn’t become a manga artist, I would probably have become a NEET, but that is why I had to become a manga artist. I am glad I became a manga artist. I just barely managed. It was a close call.

Rin: (Chuckles)

Manga I read as a boy

Fujimoto: I watched anything interesting. Of course, I watched One Piece.

Rin: You mentioned that you were a monthly Shonen Jump “reader,” right?

Fujimoto: I watched [Dragon Drive] and other monthly jumps.

Rin: Didn’t you also say you were reading Ami Shibata’s manga? The “Freeman Hero”?

Fujimoto: ah, I was watching “Freeman Hero. I found it at a used bookstore and bought it. I bought the cheap ones…ah… but I said something awful, didn’t I….

Rin: No, no, no, no, no.

Fujimoto: I usually bought all the manga that were inexpensive. I would buy and read both the funny ones and the ones that weren’t funny. There was a used bookstore in my hometown that was so rundown and dangerous that I wondered, “Who goes there? I used to buy manga there because they were super cheap. I heard it had already gone out of business. I was lucky that the store somehow managed to stay open while I was still in my hometown….

When we first met

Rin: (Fujimoto-sensei) submitted a work he created when he was 17 to “JUMP SQ.”‘s monthly award, and it was a finalist (for the award). I was put in charge of the project, and that’s when I called him. After that, we had a lot of meetings over the phone. Mr. Fujimoto was living in Yamagata at the time, so we kept in touch by phone for a year or a year and a half, maybe two years? When I was traveling to Sendai on business, I asked him to come to Sendai and meet me, saying, “I will pay for your transportation. We had sushi the first day we met, right?

Fujimoto: Yes, I had sushi. The rice was already seasoned, so I didn’t have to put soy sauce on it. That’s amazing! I thought, “That’s what expensive sushi is like.

Rin: I remember going to a bookstore, buying a lot of books, eating sushi, and going home saying, “See you later.

How did you become the editor in charge?

Rin: Well, he was young at the time, and the style of the manga was challenging, so the editorial staff was like…what is he like… “Isn’t he a strange boy? There was an “air” like that (laugh). But when I called him on the phone, we had a normal conversation, so I was like, “No problem at all!”. The content of the manga is aggressive, so I wondered what he would be like. (laugh).

The system was that the editorial staff, who had a short career, would basically choose the artist who had won the best awards at that time. I wasn’t the youngest, but they said I could choose from the finalists, so I said, “I’ll be in charge of this writer.

Fujimoto was quick to come up with storyboards. As I recall, he sent me a new one the following week or so.
From there, he kept sending me new storyboards at a very fast pace.

Fujimoto：I needed money, and I wanted to buy paints and other things.

Rin: He was sending me storyboards at a very fast pace, so I thought it was interesting while having meetings with him. He was very quick to withdraw his own ideas. I would say, “This part, this part, and this part are bothering me,” and he would say, “Well, I won’t do it anymore.

Fujimoto：I thought it was no good at the “point” where the “core” of the story was already bothering me. If it’s just a little side passage that’s hard to understand, it’s fine to change it, but if what I want to convey, the “core” of the story, is wrong to begin with…. I think it’s better not to get too attached to it.

Rin: I got the impression that we would have a meeting where I would say, “I think it would be good to fix this part,” but the next week I would get a storyboard that was different from the one I had.

First serialized work 　Fire Punch

Rin: Mr. Fujimoto was rejected twice in the screening process for serialization. The editor-in-chief at that time had no intention of starting the .His reaction was that he had no intention of starting a series at all. If he had said that the concept was “too dark,” I would never have been able to start this work. So, in that sense, it was a good thing that you chose Shonen Jump+.

Fujimoto: Yes. Jump Plus is the best, really.

Rin: Yes. (laugh).

Fujimoto: Well, if it didn’t work out, I’m glad it didn’t.

Rin: Well, I would have drawn something different then. But, well, you wanted to do it, right?

Fujimoto: If it was interesting, I wanted to do it, and if it wasn’t, I didn’t want to do it. At that time, I felt that my opinion was not that important, and I wanted multiple objective opinions.

Short stories 　17-21 　22-26

Fujimoto: I was even more immature back then than I am now, so there are things I wish I had done now that would have made it look like that, or like this. At the time, I was looking at my own work, thinking, I need to work harder.

Rin: When I read back and counted the ages, I realized that it took quite a long time. I have the impression that I went pro much earlier than that, but it was unexpected. It took six years from the time we met to the first serialization, and I realized once again that it took a long time. At first, Mr. Fujimoto said to me, “I don’t want to publish the manga,” and I told him that he should publish it and let it take shape.

Fujimoto: I wanted to release it for free. It was a really immature work. I felt that the manga was not worth seeing, and I felt bad about charging money for it.

Is there any manga work that you are particularly attached to?

Rin: I have already told you that my favorite manga is “Assassins.

Fujimoto: After I finish drawing a manga, I have nothing left in me, so I don’t have that much….Nothing.

Rin: I feel that quite a lot” is the moment when Mr. Fujimoto changed as a manga artist before and after “Assassins. That’s why I often say that I like Assassins.

Full-length reading work 　Look Back

Rin: Mr. Fujimoto said he had something he wanted to draw. The story sounded interesting, so I thought why not give it a try anyway. I also suggested that if the “timing” of the anime was to be adjusted, it would be good to have a few short stories in between the two seasons of the manga. And they made a very interesting one.

Fujimoto: We had talked about how I definitely wanted to draw a short manga.

Rin: You said that you wanted to draw a short manga when you had time, around the time of the third or fourth volume of “Chainsaw Man.

Fujimoto: Even if we start the second part of “Chainsaw Man” soon, I have always wanted to draw a short story in between. I wanted to draw a short piece so that I could take a break and look at [Chainsaw Man] from an objective point of view. The brain I use is completely different from the brain I use for serialization, so it is much easier to control, but I don’t think being able to control it is what makes a comic interesting. I think there is definitely something interesting about putting 19 pages in a weekly magazine, and I don’t know if it’s a break or not, because you use a completely different brain when you do a read-only piece.

Rin: Well, but it is important to use a different brain than usual, isn’t it?

Fujimoto: Yes, and it’s fun. I probably didn’t project myself that much in [Look Back], but as I said in another interview or something, when I drew it and showed it to Yuji sensei “manga artist yuji kaku,” he said, “This is your story, so change the character’s name. In fact, the first name was…what was it? I had two different names, “Nonose” and “………,” but “Fujino” and “Kyomoto” were named “Fujino” and “Kyomoto” because Yuji sensei told me to make them “a bit like autobiographies.

Rin: Was that about the time after you had finished the work?

Fujimoto: Yes, I changed the name to about after I finished the manga. But it is not an autobiography at all.

Rin: But it does reflect the views you have seen, doesn’t it?

Fujimoto: Yes. Fujimoto: Yes, but I am easily influenced, so I try not to look at the comments on my manga anymore. I don’t want to change the story I’m going to tell next time based on what people say on Twitter. However, I am happy when I hear that many people are praising my work in interviews like this, and it makes me think, “I have to work harder from now on. There are areas where I would like to make further “improvements” in my manga, and I would like to devote myself to them.

Is Rin Shihei a reliable editor?

Fujimoto: I don’t know… I don’t know…trust…I don’t know…? Maybe I don’t trust him… (laugh)

Rin 　(laugh)

Fujimoto: Still in doubt, like this, keeping a distance from each other.

Rin: Indeed, we’ve been at this distance for a long time.

Fujimoto: I don’t know what trust is…. When I’m creating a story, I’m inside the story, so my perspective is a bit fuzzy, so I want to hear a lot of opinions from other people, not just Mr. Hayashi.And since Mr. Rin has experience with other writers and other works, I appreciate that part because he is a proper stranger when looking at a story.

Fellow writers with whom I interact

Fujimoto: Mr. Tatsu, who is serializing on [DAN DADAN], Mr. Kaku, who is serializing on [Ayashimon], and their assistants are all good friends of mine, and I think there are a lot of people who are going to start professional serialization in the future.

Rin: Basically, these are people you have become friends with through your relationship with the manga assistants, right?

Fujimoto: When “Skype drinking” became popular in Corona, I tried it. We talked about our works and what we thought was interesting.

Rin: We have a relatively close relationship, and we talk and drink often. I think it depends on the manga artist, but I have the impression that everyone at the [Fire Punch (manga)] workplace was comfortable, and we became good friends.

Tatsuki Fujimoto’s third-grade sister, Koharu Nagayama

Rin: Before the serialization of [Fire Punch], I did a search on the title to see if any information had leaked out, and to see how people were reacting to it, and the account said, “My big brother is starting a serial.

Fujimoto: That’s scary…isn’t it?

Koharu Nakayama My big brother’s manga is on JUMP PLUS today. I forgot the title. Please give me your best regards.

Rin: I think anyone who would do something like this is pretty much a psychopath. I thought, “This is really scary. I told Mr. Fujimoto that I was going to consult a lawyer and sue him, and he looked very uncomfortable….

Fujimoto: It was a bad situation, wasn’t it? If I don’t fight with myself, it means no good… (smiles)

Rin: Yes (laugh)…that was a surprise…I was scared….
But now I think that maybe it is the most proper way to manage an account. I think it is better to have someone with a sense of distance who is not the manga artist himself.

Fujimoto: But I tend to post things like “I ate oden” on Twitter even though I haven’t eaten any oden. I wonder what’s going on with me. Am I OK? I think to myself.

Rin: (wry laugh).

Fujimoto: Sometimes I wonder, “What am I doing?

Rin: Well, is it unexpectedly meaningful to you to become a different persona, in short, an elementary school child?

Fujimoto: As I played the role of “Koharu Nagayama,” I gradually became “Koharu Nagayama” myself. I started to say things like “I recommend it,” and I started to see trees and rivers and think they are beautiful, so maybe this was a good thing.

TV animation 　Chainsaw Man

Fujimoto: I’m looking forward to it!

Rin: This is the first anime adaptation of Mr. Fujimoto’s manga, so I’m really looking forward to seeing how the pictures will move.

Impressions after watching the teaser PV

Click image to jump to video↓

Fujimoto: There is a scene where houses and debris are blown away, and I thought he put a lot of effort into drawing it. I am currently working on a manuscript, and I feel like I want someone who can draw scenes like this as my assistant. I think to myself, “How much would I have to pay them to come to my house?

Rin: The quality of the teaser PV was so good that I wished they would draw all the scenes until the end. I’m being greedy, but I’d be happy if they could keep working at that level, but when I asked MAPPA if they were going to make the full-length version like that, there was a sense of disquiet. I was expecting a lot, but…, I guess it turned out to be pressure.

Expectations for the TV animation

Fujimoto: I really like to see the direction, whether it be in the form of moving images or manga-like expressions. Chainsaw Man looks like it’s taken from a video, but it’s a very expressive work that could only be done in a manga. If it were to be animated as it is, it would have an uncomfortable feel, and some parts would be tacky, so I would like the anime to show a new direction with the feeling that the original work can be ignored.

Rin: I have already read the entire script and have given it back to them, I think so now the animation side is working on the storyboards and drawing.

Fujimoto: I am an amateur in the field of animation and visual effects, so I hope that the people who know what they are doing will do it in a way that allows them to give 100% of themselves. I’m thinking that it’s better not to say anything as if I absolutely want you to do this.

Rin: I have already seen some storyboards. All we did was to point out the differences from the original work, and that’s really all we did. I hope that the anime will be produced the way everyone thinks it should be.

Fujimoto: It’s hard to imagine what it would be like without seeing it in motion, isn’t it? So we are also looking forward to the broadcast of the animation.

Rin: Indeed. In reality, the storyboards are not exactly as they are. how does it move. Because there are parts that cannot be imagined from the PV.

Message from MAPPA, an animation production company

Rin: Yes, I received a comment from MAPPA, so I’d like to share it with you.

Hello everyone who enjoys “Jump Festa.”
The anime [Chainsaw Man] continues to rise toward completion day by day in terms of storyboards and settings.
With the help of Mr. Fujimoto, we’re working hard to bring you the best work possible.Please continue to support both the original work and the anime.

Fujimoto: I haven’t been cooperating at all… (Chuckles) I’m sorry for making you say that…

Rin: … (Chuckles)

Chainsaw Man Part 2: School

Part II: Progress on the School Arc

Rin: We are only looking for assistants on the web. Information about the second part of “Chainsaw Man” has been loosely distributed. Mr. Fujimoto plans to draw a new short manga and finish it before starting the second part. So right now he is in the process of drawing a completely new manga. It looks like he is frantically working on the penmanship.

Fujimoto: I am penciling a manga that is not Chainsaw Man. I am sorry… But it’s something I want to do… I’m sorry…

Rin: No, no, no (chuckles). I hope you all enjoy that as well. We will start production of the second part as soon as that is finished.

What will the school version of the story be?

Fujimoto: I’ve already decided what I’m going to do, so I can’t talk about it because it would be a spoiler. I can only tell you that this is what will happen, so I want you to read that in the manga.

Rin: The information we can give out at this stage is that Yoshida will appear…!

Fujimoto: Yoshida will appear, yes.

Rin: I guess that’s about it. I wish I could at least give you an idea of when we will start the serialization, so let’s say early summer of 2022.

Fujimoto: …I’m not sure… Early summer…summer…! Please say “summer”…!

Rin: Laugh) So, Mr. Fujimoto will draw a manga aiming for serialization in the summer season, which is close to “early summer. I think we finally have a date (for the start of the second part of the series), so I hope you will wait for i

Fujimoto: Yes, I will do my best. After the first part of “Chainsaw Man” was finished, there was “Look Back,” and after that, there was another manga that had to draw, which did not show any blood at all. I have this feeling that I want to draw blood and viscera as soon as possible. But that is no different from what I was doing in JUMP. It’s not that I’ve moved to “Shonen Jump+,” but it doesn’t make it any more grotesque.

Rin: So you are trying to draw interesting things rather than aiming for grotesqueness?

Fujimoto: For my part, I’m just going to work hard on the serialization again. I would like to be even better at drawing than I was at the time of the first part.

Ending: Comments, messages, project PV

Today’s Impressions

Rin: We met yesterday, so… (laugh)

Fujimoto: We were interviewed yesterday and talked a lot, so we talked so much that there is nothing more to talk about (laugh).

Fujimoto: We will meet again soon (laugh).

Rin: We have met quite a bit. Well, it’s embarrassing to tell the audience about my past, but I’m glad we could talk about it.

Fujimoto: Yes, I am glad.

Message from Tatsuki Fujimoto to the audience

Fujimoto: I will probably make many more works in the future, not limited to “Chainsaw Man. I will make a lot of works that people who have seen [Chainsaw Man] will enjoy. I hope you enjoy [Chainsaw Man] and the next installment as well.

Message from Shihei Rin to the audience

Rin: In 2022, there will be a second part of [Chainsaw Man], a new short manga, and an anime.
I am really happy with everyone’s support. I would be happy if you could recommend this work to your friends and family and enjoy it with them, as well as to those who came to see it today. Thank you very much for your support. So, everyone, please look forward to the development of [Chainsaw Man] in 2022 and beyond. Farewell.

Fujimoto: Good-bye. Sayonara~.

Thank you for watching. See you soon.

chainsaw man.　(World’s largest number of translations)

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