SF Online Interview with Hagio (Part III-3)

(Continued)

Hagio:

In that story, each episode shows mysterious monsters called "Angels" being sent in, one by one. For some reason they target the same spot each time, and people fight back. But those various parts of the backbone [of the story], things you wonder why as you watch, are all left unexplained. I didn't expect that even by the very end, you wouldn't get an explanation.

Mizutama:

Ah, such questions—you would still have a lot of them after watching the theatrical releases.

Hagio:

That father, was he a spy in the end?

Sakai:

No, not really. (laugh)

Mizutama:

That father, he just wanted to find happiness for himself. (laugh)

Hagio:

Who were those shadowy people who controlled the father from behind the scenes?

Sakai:

You mean "Seele?" I am not sure, either. In the end, you don't find out anything.

Hagio:

Oh, really.

(Continues to Part IV)

SF Online Interview with Hagio (Part III-2)

(Continued)

Mizutama:

Do you have any particular type of SciFi you're especially fond of these days? Like, "I am such a sucker for stories with such and such gadgets."

Hagio:

Mmmm. Computers going insane—that's interesting to me. Ever since "2001: A Space Odyssey" I find computers interesting. In the Seafort Saga, was it? —There was a funny computer, too.

Sakai:

The one that goes insane very easily.

Hagio:

Yes, very easily and neatly. So humans calculate using various other methods, rather than computers.

Sakai:

Is it because they go insane that you find computers interesting?

Hagio:

Yes, it is. Because, if you have a computer, be it within spaceship or in a city, its existence implies in a sense that you've conceded full power to it. And if that goes crazy, what else could be more suspenseful?

Mizutama:

So it's fun to think about the possible variations, isn't it: if this happens then it leads to that, and so on. (laugh)

Hagio:

Yes, that gets exciting! (laugh) Oh, by the way, this may be a bit of a jump but I've also gotten fairly hooked by the story of "Evangelion." I saw it after all the episodes had been aired. I borrowed it from someone who highly recommended it. I watched it in sequence from the beginning. I was only told, "You will be surprised at the final and penultimate episodes."

Mizutama:

Wow, that's a very sinful bait that you got tossed. (laugh)

Hagio:

So as I watched, I was wondering how I would be surprised, like when I had been reading "Kirinyaga," thinking about the possible developments. Like, would it go this way or that way. Then at the end—I couldn't believe the ending at all.

Sakai:

Wa haahahaha

Hagio:

But I thought the settings and situation were very interesting.

Sakai:

Have you seen the theatrically released "ending?" [Note 1]

[Note 1] The "Neon Genesis Evangelion" series has three movie version "endings" and I am not sure which one Sakai is referring to. None could be considered an "ending"of the story, actually. A live action version is being produced in the U.S. and THAT is supposed to be the true "ending."

Hagio:

I have it but I haven't managed to watch it yet. Those who watched it told me, "You still don't get [the story] even if you watch it." So I don't know what to do, should I watch it and reconsider? Have you seen it?

Mizutama:

Yes, but please don't ask me to explain it. (laugh)

(Continues)

My husband's experience with "Poe no Ichizoku"

The "Poe no Ichizoku" series began with "すきとおった銀の髪" (Translucent Silver Hair) in the March 1972 issue of Bessatsu Shojo Komikku (Extra Edition Girls Comics, a companion monthly publication to the weekly Shojo Komikku), and ended with "エディス" (Edith) in the June 1976 issue, and is made up of 15 episodes of various lengths.

For those of us who read Anne Rice ("Poe no Ichizoku" predates Rice's Vampire Chronicles), it may be hard to comprehend the impact "Poe no Ichizoku" had on contemporary Japanese readers at the time. So let me use my husband as an example.

My husband caught "Edith" while he was browsing manga magazines at his calligraphy school. He was really haunted by it - it was very obvious that he caught up with the ending of a very complex saga - but he couldn't do anything about it even if he wanted to read more. A few years later he got into an argument with an older female cousin about the merits of shojo manga vs. shonen manga (boys' manga), and she reintroduced "Poe no Ichizoku" to him (it is needless to say who won the argument). He read all four volumes in a single evening, which also added to the reading of this very moody piece - it is best read at dusk, he says. He was blown away.

Now that he got this "blood" from his cousin, he also tried to recruit more people into fandom. He says that people's reactions are typically divided into two camps - those who got similarly haunted by it, and those who just couldn't understand it (regardless of sex or age), because it went beyond the conventional confines of the manga form.

Many "Poe no Ichizoku" fans talk about a similar, very special private moment when they first encountered this work, and for the first time in shojo manga history, it counted many male readers among its avid fans.

Commercially, this work and its success opened the eyes of publishers who traditionally had a narrow idea about what their readers wanted. So shojo manga became a fertile ground for story innovation and my husband says he completely ditched shonen manga in favor of shojo manga. He thinks the impact went beyond the realm of manga. Animation series like Gundam or Evangelion, which both feature very complex narrative and detailed inner worlds, would not have been commercially possible without the success of "Poe".