Studio Zombie Interview In the first volume of the Slayers Special manga, there was an interview with artists Tommy Ohtsuka and Yoshihiro Komada. Here is the interview as it appeared in Slayers Special Book One: Touch of Evil. Tommy Ohtsuka and Yoshihiro Komada are the co-founders of Studio Zombie, the graphics company where SLAYERS SPECIAL was created. Tommy had humble beginnings as a manga artist at Waseda University's EASY-MAN manga club. After unexpectedly bumping into his old friend Yoshihiro Komada, both men quit their office jobs to help create SHINOBU SPIRIT, a manga wich ran in Comic Dragon Magazine in 1997. Among Tommy's many hit series are SABER MARIONETTE and ORPHEN, and he recently completed a SLAYERS card game. Collaborating with Yoshihiro, he has also worked on the manga version of the film SLAYERS PREMIUM. Together they are working on the new SLAYERS project, SUI-RYU-OH NO KISHI, featung new characters and twists in the expanding SLAYERS universe! We were very fortunate to visit Tommy and Yoshihiro at their studio during a recent visit to Japan. Here's what they had to say about working on SLAYERS, American comics, and their favorite foods... CPM(*): Why do you call yourself Tommy? Does this come from the English name Tom? Tommy: This is the pseudonym that I used when I was a student. There used to be a comedian named Tonny-Tani, and I liked him a lot, and my name was Tomohiko. So I put the two together and got Tommy. CPM: How did you and Mr. Komada meet? Komada: We both joined the manga club at Waseda University, and that's where we met. CPM: Do you have any other staff working at your company? Komada: It's mainly us two, but sometimes we have other people help us because our workload has gotten bigger. CPM: What was your first manga? Tommy: It was about a girl with transformation powers. Our college manga club published manga once a year, but those weren't really meant for the general public. When I was drawing it, I knew the readers wouldn't be the general public, so I tried to draw a manga that would be more accepted by the club audience. It was more of a manga that I drew for myself. When I quit my job to draw full-time it was necessary to have an audience who enjoyed my work, so I had to make my work more accessible. There's a huge difference between the manga I drew as a student and the ones I drew when I went pro. CPM: How did you become the manga artist for SLAYERS? Tommy: After Komada and I decided we wanted to become manga artists, we brought a manga sample to Kadokawa Publishing. It was a "We want to draw manga like this, so please hire us," kind of thing. We started out drawing another manga, then Kadokawa came to us and asked if we wanted to draw the manga version of SLAYERS, because they had the rights to the series. I think our artistic style was a good match with SLAYERS, and this really helped bring the work to life. CPM: After reading the original story, were you able to visualize it well? Did you have requests by the original creator for what each panel should look like? Tommy: Actually, the creator, Hajime Kanzaka, really didn't give us any direction on how the story should be laid out. We were told we could tell his story however we wanted, as long as we kept the essential charm of SLAYERS, the basic nature of the SLAYERS world, and the characteristics of Lina and the other characters. So Mr. Kanzaka barely touched the artwork. He checked to see if your work could still be called SLAYERS after we drew it, but other than that we were given free reign. CPM: What is the most interesting thing about SLAYERS from your point of view? Komada: It's definitely Lina Inverse. She's very lively and selfish, too, but she's a character you'd want to meet. She makes the story interesting, but I bet if you actually met her, you'd end up being put through something dreadful. I think that's her charm. CPM: Where do you find your artistic inspiration? Tommy: I get really anxious to draw after I read a good manga. It fans the flames of rivalry when I see great artwork, or when I read a manga that has a really good plot. Komada: I get like that, too. The person who I look up to is Yoshiyuki Tomino, the director of the GUNDAM series. Tommy and I are both fans of his. Tommy: It's not a well-known work, but we really like is SPACE RUNAWAY IDEON a lot. (**) Komada: Whatever he works on has a very distinct style that we really like. CPM: Good heroes are better when they have great villains to play off of. Who is your favorite SLAYERS villain? Tommy: In SLAYERS, the plot mainly revolves around Lina, and the story isn't structured as a "good guys beat the bad guys" kind of thing, so it doesn't have a prominent villain. Although he's not a character from SLAYERS, I found the character "Kenou" very interesting. He's the villain from a manga series called FIST OF THE NORTH STAR. CPM: You had an interview with WIZARD ANIME INVASION magazine where you said if you had to choose a character from American comics, you would want to draw the Hulk. Why would you want to draw a character with two personalities? Tommy: I think that with humans living in society, in order to function they must have a side in which they hold back their emotions, and another side where they don't. I don't think there are many chances for emotions to manifest themselves. In the Hulk's case, he transforms when he's under extreme stress, but he also possesses a side where he holds back his emotions so he can function in society. That's what's fascinating. The side that explodes from his anger, and the side that doesn't. There was a similar manga called KIKAIDER(***) by Shotaro Ishimori. Kikaider was a robot that was created to do work, but this robot had a defect which created an evil side. In the story, Kikaider gets confused and wonders what's right and wrong. He's a robot, but he's very human-like. The part where he had this internal battle between good and evil was very interesting. With the Hulk, it wasn't just beating the bad guys, it was also the battle within him, and I found that very interesting. CPM: In SLAYERS, there are a lot of scenes where Lina and Naga are eating. Do you both like eating? Tommy: We eat everything! Komada: I think the reason why there are so many scenes where they eat is because it's our hobby. I just draw what I want to eat. (*) Stands for Central
Park Media, the company that releases the Slayers manga
and TV anime in America. A link to Studio Zombie no Space Runaway can be found in the Links section. |