Interview with Odacchi
ranslation of the interview:
Oda-sensei's workplace is an entire home. After entering, you'll find the assistant's room to the right, and Oda-sensei's room to the left. Right behind his desk are boxes of research material closing in on it, and the entire room is filled to the brim with materials and tools!
"Basically, no one but me ever comes into this room. I'd be lost if anyone tried to clean it. It might look like I'm just throwing things around me, but to me, this is an orderly state. (laugh)"
The theme for this interview is "Color Illustrations". You're not just making the covers for the comic volumes, but also drawing lots of covers for the magazine and also color covers for serialized chapters. Do you think drawing all these illustrations while also making serialized chapters is tiring?
"I think it's fun. I became a manga artist in the first place because I like drawing pictures, so I enjoy making illustrations."
How much time do you use for it?
"Usually I'll make an illustration in two days out of a week. I always make the backdrops of the illustrations myself, too. That's because I don't like coloring things that someone else has drawn. (laugh)"
I've got the feeling you have a high degree of freedom in choosing the topics for the illustrations.
"That's true. I draw a lot of things that doesn't have anything to do with the actual story. But deciding what to draw is still the part that takes up the most time. It takes almost a full day. I'll ask people for ideas, think about the season, and make lots of sketches on paper before I can decide what to draw - if I can't think up anything I like, I can't make myself draw it. And I don't want to draw something that I've already drawn. That's boring. I only want to draw things that I want to draw!"
It certainly comes through that you're considering your illustrations thoroughly. There's an entire story even in a single image, isn't there?
"Yes, I tend to think things like "what would these people do if they were thrown into this situation?", like a story. For example, if I were doing an image of a card game, I would think about who was winning and who was losing and what cards they were holding. If this guy is winning, then he'd have this many cards on hand, etc. I like giving each character their own situation. I can't draw someone if I don't know what they're doing. Like someone just standing in a pose. I wonder why they're posing like that. (laugh) And if I don't know what they're thinking, I can't draw their facial expression either."
Your compositions are also unique. In particular, the layouts that pulls you up very close to the characters have a great impact! Earlier, Amano Yoshitaka-sensei* praised you with saying that it feels like the viewer is getting pulled into the image (see "Manga-talent TECHNIC" 02).
*Involved in designing visuals and characters in lots of anime series and games, for example "Science Ninja Squad Gacchaman", the "Timeship" series, the "Final Fantasy" series, etc. Also active as a painter and a book illustrator.
"That's all about where you put the camera. Even if you draw the same thing, the picture will become completely different depending on the camera position. It seems I often put the camera very close. It's not like I draw thinking that I'll put it as close as possible, but it seems to have become a habit, and it feels better if I do. If I pull the camera back, people close to the camera and far from the camera will be about the same size. I want to draw those who are close extremely big, and those who are far very small. Then there'll be a sense of depth, too."
So, for those who feel that their pictures always come out too flat, that might change if you consciously try to put the camera very close to the subject!
I also want to ask about how you use colors. What artist material do you use?
"Mostly Copic. Recently, I've also introduced some colored pencils from a German producer called "Holbein". There are 150 colors, but I've hardly used them yet. (laugh)"
Do you decide immediately on what kind of colors you want to use?
"No, I worry about it a lot. So I make small copies of the illustrations after the inking stage, and try coloring in different ways. That's when I usually decide which color scheme I'm going with. The actual work of drawing and coloring goes pretty quickly. But you can't work while you're hesitating. That's why I think it's much more efficient to try out various color schemes - even though it's a bother - rather than stop and think about it all the time while coloring the actual thing!"
Your illustrations use a lot of colors, making stand out vividly, but at the same time every picture have a very coherent look that many people would like to imitate. Do you have some kind of secret?
"Be creative with the shadow colors. If you use the opposing colors, red for shadow on the green parts, and green for shadow on the red parts, all shadows will look grayish, and the image will look coherent. I learned this from someone who graduated from an art school, though. (laugh)"
You mean that even if you use a single gray color for the shadows, it won't look like the same color in the end?
"No, it won't look like the same color. The coherent look comes from merging the colors with their opposites. If you do that, you can use any colors you like on the non-shadowed parts, and the picture still won't seem disjointed. As for the shadows on white parts (white doesn't have an opposite color), I recommend deciding on a single color, like purple, and color very lightly."
In the world of manga all sorts of genres appear, and there are very many adult readers. But you've always said that you'll keep focused on "boys", writing the "royal road" of Shounen Manga.
"I still believe that. The one thing I think about the most when it comes to doing this for a long time is that the readers gradually grow up. But it's important for the writer not to get caught up in that. If you try to adapt to the readership, the manga will also gradually become adult. And if that happens, the next boys - the new readers - won't be able to get in! It turns into a manga that only hard-core fans can appreciate! It's okay if the readership changes. I think that the readers of Shounen Manga grow up and leave, and that's why I'm always thinking of how I can make the boys who start reading now happy. I think that as long as Shounen Manga doesn't lose that focus, we'll be alright. It's the answer I've arrived to after doing this for a long time, experiencing different periods, punching the walls, and reflecting on it."
Have you yourself ever had a period where you thought that new readers wouldn't be able to get in?
"I have. And then I think "This won't do" and go back to consciously remembering that I write this for the boys. I have a feeling that the readership has a turn-over of about five years. That means One Piece is probably facing its third period right about now. (laugh)"
How do you think manga will change in the future?
"If it's okay to stick to Shounen Manga - I don't think it'll change at all. Boys like excitement, and that hasn't changed since ancient times. As long as I present things that I think I would have been happy to read when I was a child, the present children are bound to find it interesting. I do have a feeling that the trends in the manga world is changing, but... Yeah, I definitely think that it'd be bad to change. When I talk about not changing, it might sound like I'm saying that we should keep writing old stuff, but that's not it at all. On the contrary, I think freshness is necessary.
To put it more concretely: I want to stay at that moment when I'm writing a pirate manga with fresh things that have never existed before, and sending it into the world where the readers eat it up - the moment when I'm working like mad to send One Piece into the world. That moment has to go on unchanging.
Boys will always stay with the one who keeps creating fresh new things, that is timeless. That's why the creators have to maintain the state where we keep making original and interesting things - you could say that we have to "preserve" it.
In order to preserve this, we have to keep moving forward, even though there might be some who have the delusion that once you've reached popularity, you can just stop at that point and work on routine. But if you do that, you're no longer "preserving" - you're "regressing". To release repetitions is the same as releasing old stuff."
Even entering your eleventh year of serialization, you're still burning with enthusiasm for manga.
"I always want to keep creating something that's better than what I've ever done before. Of course, if you want more people to read your creation, you need to have that feeling."
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Boxes to the side:
Page 2:
Oda-sensei's workflow for a week:
Monday - Comic creation
Tuesday - Comic creation -> Finishing manuscript!
Wednesday - Staff meeting (usually by phone), Color illustrations, Anime related things, etc.
Thursday - Color illustrations, Anime related things, etc.
Friday - Sketches, Arrival of assistants ("I make them come early so that I get into a situation where I can't escape. (laugh)" --Oda-sensei)
Saturday - Sketches
Sunday - Comic creation
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Manga-talent TECHNIC 01: Draw the picture you want to draw!
"There's always some particular picture I absolutely want to draw in every arc, so I work the story to arrive at that picture. For example, in the "Sky Island Arc", I wanted to draw the Camp Fire picture." (JC volume 32) The little "playing" going on in the corners of some pictures is also fun. "People notice even the little things that I think no one will see, and that makes me happy! It makes me want to do it again!"
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Manga-talent SHOT 01: A secret of how the story is put together
Sometimes the sketches go past the allowed number of pages, because I prioritize the pictures I want to draw. When that happens, I cut out out the frames and put them back together like a puzzle. By the way, the picture I wanted to draw in chapter 522 was Luffy's face like this (from WJ #51).
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Page 3:
Manga-talent SHOT 02: The masterpiece is born here
Oda-sensei's desk. There's research material piled up on both sides of the large, rectangular desk. The paper spread on the desk bears traces of many scribbles. Even when Oda-sensei isn't sitting here, it's a strange space, with a whirling, hot atmosphere!
The assistants' room. There are lots of DVDs on the decorative shelf to the left. "It's mostly Westerns, historical movies, and old black-and-white Kurosawa Akira-films." At the back end of the room, there's a cozy space for staff meetings.
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Page 4:
Manga-talent TECHNIC 02: A verrry close viewpoint
A powerful illustration that surprised Amano Yoshitaka-sensei ("The characters are bursting out from the picture!") in an interview recorded in the illustration collection "Color Walk 3" (from a poster included in WJ 4-5 1999). Luffy's and Sanji's feet are drawn very big, and we can see that Oda-sensei's viewpoint is almost moving in under them.
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Manga-talent SHOT 03: A mix of common and original tools
A mechanical pencil has been customized by cutting it shorter (topmost in the picture). Oda-sensei has started using three G-pens at the same time, so that when all three of them break down, he can change them together. It saves time.
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Manga-talent SHOT 04: The source of the colors are Copic and colored pencils
Oda-sensei uses mostly Copic (the above picture). The Holbein colored pencils were introduced because he wanted to draw an "Edo picture". You can see the Edo picture drawn by these pens on the cover foldout in JC volume 52!
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Manga-talent SHOT 05: A treasure found - a big notebook
For every arc, Oda-sensei always creates notebooks - at a pace of one every three weeks - with detailed information on the settings and characters. The picture shows those created for the "Island of Women arc".
سكانز 1
سكانز 2
سكانز 3
سكانز 4