SF Online Interview with Hagio (Part II-1)

(Continued from Part I)

Mizutama:

Now, let's talk about manga. We readers have your work, but as for your own experiences with SciFi manga, at that time wouldn't you have been reading Tezuka or Ishinomori—Ishimori back then—is that about right?

Hagio:

Yes. When I was in elementary school, a decent amount of SciFi stories appeared in shojo manga magazines. There was a cute SciFi story by Reiji Matsumoto—there was an incident [non-fiction] where the wintering team [of the Japanese expedition] left behind Taro and Jiro [sled dogs] in Antarctica. [In the story] They're rescued by space aliens, who augment their intelligence, and then Taro and Jiro come back to retaliate on the earthlings. Isn't it fun? (laugh)

Sakai:

That was in a shojo manga magazine?

Hagio:

Yes, it was.

Mizutama:

So you thought you would become someone who did those types of stories. No, not the revenge of Taro and Jiro; I mean SciFi manga.

Hagio:

Of course you are influenced by what you read. Even while you're in the middle of reading a book, you're appreciating how good it is. So I had a notebook for ideas, or so-called production notes of my own and that's where I wrote down the titles only or titles and rough plots, and the majority of them were SciFi. Perhaps there may have been a lot of outrageous ideas, I'm afraid. (laugh)

Sakai:

So at the point when you became a cartoonist, you already had the intention of doing SciFi, didn't you?

Hagio:

My head was half-filled with SciFi, so I wanted to.

(Continues)