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You may have noticed a few changes around here at YaoiSuki. That's because we've moved to a new host, and in the process upgraded and altered a bunch of our features (most notably: embedded wiki and better forums). Unfortunately, we lost our user database in the move, so those of you who were signed up will unfortunately need to sign up again. It's a pretty painless process though!
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Sunday, 22 October 2006 |
First off, let me thank Rachel over at Juné for setting up this interview for us-- it was fabulous!
Second, of course, many thanks to Kawai Toko-sensei for being willing to take time out of her busy schedule to talk to us at the con!
And third: I spoke to Kawai-sensei via a translator, so the answers are in third person and are somewhat paraphrased (though I did check them in my audio recording of the conversation).
Fourth and fifth: I didn't get to all the questions, and then I completely forgot to take photos! (The interview happened at a slightly different time than we expected, slightly spur of the moment actually, so I was kind of all thrown off...but she signed a book with a little sketch of her puppy-self, so we'll scan that when we get a chance!)
All those problems aside...click "read more" to read our interview!
Yaoi Con discussion thread is here.
Question 1: Where does sensei get her inspirations from, especially for the story Bondz?
Answer: Most of her stories come from personal experiences, and she usually gets inspired by reading novels, watching TV commercials, seeing photos or any sort of one-piece visual...but that doesn't mean that it comes easy to her in any way. As for Bondz, the concept of the story was she wanted to write a story about body piercing, because she wanted to write about a couple that kind of shared their pain in some way...so piercing was the answer to that. So it's kind of like a sort of S&M-type love relationship that she wrote about.
Question 2: Does sensei think that translations lose any of the cultural context of the stories?
Answer: Sensei doesn't really read English, so she's never read any of the translated versions. She leaves it to the publisher who translated, and as for the dog's name (in Our Everlasting), as long as it's not a big mistranslation that affects the outcome of the story, she's okay with it.
Question 3: Why does sensei use so much French in her stories?
Answer: Sensei loves France a lot and she actually has some French friends, so she draws from them and she has always loved French culture and French art in general, so she feels that she has been influenced by a lot of it.
Question 4: Will sensei ever write original doujinshi of her works?
Answer: Sensei has created some parody doujinshi works, but she doesn't feel that she'll be making any original doujinshi stories anytime in the future.
Question 5: Was there any impact on sensei or other mangaka after Biblos' bankruptcy?
Answer: She personally didn't go through any hardships because Libre came up so soon, so her work wasn't really interrupted...but she feels that if Libre had never been resurrected, and if she had had to take her manga to other publishers, she probably would have quit being a mangaka alltogether.
Question 6: Who is sensei's favorite character?
Answer: Horyu (Our Everlasting) and Tanizaki (In the Walnut).
Question 7: Does sensei have any plans for longer series?
Answer: Sensei has no plans for longer series...she usually is always looking forward to drawing the final concluding episode, so two volumes is as much as she can tolerate! Also, she's a very slow drawer [sic], so she thinks that five volumes or a long serial would be very difficult for her.
Question 8: What were sensei's feelings were when she drew the scene in Ano Kado were found out?
Answer: Like she mentioned earlier, she has the final episode in mind all the time, so this being found out scene was something she already knew was going to happen, and it was necessary to bring the characters to the final episode, so she was calm about it when drawing that scene...it wasn't a big surprise to her.
Question 9: Why do so many mangaka like including omake stories in their collected volumes?
Answer: It's a bit of a token of appreciation for those fans that already read the same story in magazines when it was first published...because the tankoban is just the published version bound together, so it's kind of an extra something for people that read both versions.
Question 10: In one of sensei's notes in Our Everlasting, she said the hardest thing about being a full-time mangaka was swearing off liquor. What is sensei's favorite drinks?
Answer: Japanese sake, but she doesn't really discriminate...she likes anything.
Question 11: Kono evento wa...chotto kawai desho? (This event is a little scary, isn't it?)
Answer: Sono koto nai! No, she has a lot of fun, and it's not that scary.
I also wished Sensei a happy birthday (her birthday was Monday). She was very gracious, and she wore a beautiful kimono...at the Juné panel today they told us that she doesn't have a lot of western clothes, and that she wears kimono even when she draws!
She was very nice, and very pretty, and a little shy. それじゃ。。。ありがとうございます、川唯先生! |
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Last Updated ( Monday, 23 October 2006 )
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