Interviewer: At first how do you feel about receiving the
medal with purple ribbon?
Moto Hagio: I've been really surprised until now. I'm wondering
if I am suitable for this prize.
When I was preparing for attending "Salon du Livre"
at Paris, I heard about receiving the prize. I was so surprised
that I can't remember what I replied to the call, which told me that this news
wasn't unofficial and you shouldn't tell about the prize before the official
statement. I told about it only to my stuffs.
I wanted to tell about this news to my father, because he
was admitted to a hospital. I thought that he would pass way while I had been
visiting Paris, and he did so. After I returned Japan, I went to the ritual at
the forty-ninth day, and I reported about the prize to my father and mother.
She was also surprised and said to me, "Well,
congratulations." She is a fan of the drama "the Wife of
Gegege", which described the detail of the manga author's life, and she
was surprised with it. She might realize that even manga authors lived
seriously. She called me and said, "I watched "the Wife of Gegege",
and I realized your life at last. I'm sorry." I thanked her.
Interviewer: How do you think about that your manga works
are described as "literary?"
Moto Hagio: I have no idea about it. I'm introvert, so I
tend to take everything too seriously. I've wanted to be a "girl manga"
author, and I've been publishing my works as "girl manga", but at the
same time I might be influenced by science fiction and the works of Herman
Hesse and Romain Rolland, which I've read.
From my childhood, I've also read both of "boy manga"
and "girl manga", and I thought vaguely that I could express my soul
through the style of manga, so I began devoted to drawing manga.
Usually I couldn't share my worries, but I found people who
worried about the same things, when I read Herman Hess's works, so I was
fascinated by them and I felt that I got help from his works.
Interviewer: When did you read Herman Hess's works?
Moto Hagio: When I was about twenty years old. At that time I thought
about the reason why I existed and the way that I should live. In everyday life
people told me that you should stop thinking about them and do only proper
things, like studying hard and getting a job. Ordinary people stopped thinking
about them, because thinking about them impeded doing proper things.
But Herman Hess faced such worries seriously, and wrote
about wondering how he himself should live and his failure and success. His
novel told me that I could worry about them.
Interviewer: Did you want to express them through "girl
manga?"
Moto Hagio: I might be permitted to this extent. In
"Heart of Thomas (トーマの心臓)"
the central character worried himself over. In my adolescence I also worried
myself over about everything that my friends did and said. I thought that
humanity was quite delicate and I wanted to express the delicacy.
Interviewer: How did people around you thought about
expressing these things in "girl manga?"
Interviewer: How about the reaction from the readers of your
works?
Moto Hagio: Some readers were moved deeply, and others complained
that they couldn't understand at all.
Moto Hagio: Fortunately "the Poes" in book form
was sold out soon. It was really good.
Interviewer: Were you surprised?
Moto Hagio: When "the Poes" was sold out, I was
drawing "Heart of Thomas" regularly for a magazine, but it was really
unpopular. It could be dropped, but the editors changed their minds, because
"the Poes" was sold well. It helped me a lot. I just felt relieved
that I could continue "Heart of Thomas", and I couldn't analyze the
popularity of "the Poes" objectively.
Interviewer: How do you think about the power of "girl manga?"
Moto Hagio: At Salon du Livre, I was asked why there were
"boy manga" and "girl manga" in Japan. At that moment I
couldn't understand the meaning of this question, because it was so natural for
me that there were both of them. But a person who asked me couldn't understand
the differences of these genres. To explain simply, the reason why there were
the two genres is that interests of boys and girls are different. Girls are
interested in love, and boys are interested in adventures and teamwork。
Most early works of "girl manga", which I read in
my elementary school days, were almost stories about relationship between
mother and child, valley ball, detective, in which girls played active roles or
are faced with tragedies. As "girl manga" magazines increased, more
female authors were needed. Kodansha and Shueisha established manga awards, and
young authors applied to them. At the beginning Machiko Satonaka
and Noriko Aoike came out. A little while ago Sachiko Nishitani drew love
stories, and then Machiko Satonaka and other young authors began to make the
second boom of "girl manga."
They described girls' minds from the girls' stand point of
view. Almost of their works were fantastic and some of them were about sports,
for example valley ball. From the late 1960s to the 1970s, they draw these
manga works, and manga readers liked to read them.
Interviewer: What do you think of the attractiveness of
manga?
Moto Hagio: Graphics and words. We, manga authors, construct
frames in order to express a story by graphics. When we make perfect series of
frames, they could move readers deeply like great films or music. They pierce
directly through readers' hearts. I, myself, was moved by great manga works,
and I'd like to give something back by drawing manga, which will move someone.
I think that manga, as a genre, resemble to music and films.
When we read a novel, sometimes we stop reading them and think about the reason
why the main character talked about such things, but we watch through a film
without stopping it to think about the meanings. It's the same with music. We
don't think about the meaning of the sound of a cymbal, when we heard it. Films
and music move us at once. Manga is like them. When we want to stop reading, we
couldn't stop reading through, if we watched the next frame.
Interviewer: Manga is the art of time, isn't it?
Hagio Moto: Yes, it is. We manipulate time freely.
Interviewer: After you have been drawing in the front lines
for forty years, what would you like to draw now?
Moto Hagio: I wanted to keep drawing manga in the same way,
but I was really shocked with the images of the earthquake and the tsunami of
the East Japan last year. And then I could hardly believe that it was real to
explode Fukushima nuclear power plants, because I had believed that it should
be the happening just in the science fiction. I felt like that the world came
to the end.
I found that I only draw the stories about this disaster, so
I intend to draw other kinds of stories, like "Nanohana." It's really
hard to think only about the disaster, so I'd like to get away from it and draw
science fiction or a historical story, in which beautiful costumes appear.
I tend to be drawn into this topic, and the half of the
books that I read is about nuclear power.
Interviewer: What manga authors should express in this
situation?
Moto Hagio: Some manga authors, for example KotobukiShiriagari and Osamu Yamamoto, drew manga works about
last year's disaster in their own ways. Someone drew a fantasy, and another
drew a real story. I can understand that there are someone who can't help but
drawing about this disaster, because it is a really big affair.
Interviewer: It's a long time since manga have taken root in
Japan. Do you think if manga will be attractive?
Moto Hagio: Yes. When I was a child and I just became a
manga author, the genre of manga was criticized, especially at school. But now
people are favorable about manga. I wonder when they turned to be favorable. I
guess that the generations who read manga in childhood have grown up and they
are not negative about manga.
