Daisuke ga Daisuki

Shine Interview

The following interview is from Shine, Oct 2000 issue. (Shine is the Chinese version of Asuka, which unfortunately ended in around mid 2002)

note: this is only the partial translation, please excuse me for some of the words that I have difficulties with, namely places, the names of people, etc.. since the conversation was probably in Japanese, and then translated to Chinese for the magazine, and then translated to English by me.. so, there may be some mistakes...

Yukiru Sugisaki's Trip to Taiwan

On August 22nd, Sugisaki sensei and the editors of Asuka came to Tongli publication for a little interview and an autograph section.

Q	Question
Sugisaki	Yukiru
Katoh	Asuka's editor no.1
Kuramochi	Asuka's editor no.2
	----
Q	Please introduce yourself.
Sugisaki	I was born in Dec 26th, Capricorn, bloodtype O, hobby is to watch shows plays, video games, or go out with my friends.
Q	What kind of shows? Movies?
Sugisaki	No, staged plays.
Katoh	Recently sensei uses computer to draw! It's great!
Q	What kind of equipment do you have?
Sugisaki	Three main computers and 2 monitors.
Q	You liked computer graphics for a long time?
Sugisaki	No, I started around 3 years ago...
Katoh	But sensei does not use only the computer for the whole of the picture, it's only for doing the effects.
Q	Did you go to computer class?
Sugisaki	No, I obtained the skills on my own.
Katoh	Actually, in Japan not many people do CG, and most shoujo manga needs a dreamy kind of feeling, and CG has a flat feeling, so in the field of shoujo manga, CG is very rare. Sugisaki sensei's manga is a mix of shounen and shoujo, so the outcome of using CG is very good.
Q	Do you colour directly on the computer?
Sugisaki	Actually I do not do a lot on the computer. First I draw the coloured picture by hand, and then scan it into the computer in order to fix the colours and add some effects. (Katoh went and grabbed a Shine, May issue, to let sensei to tell us how she did the cover. note: it's the one with Daisuke in the front with a lot of sakura) In this picture, the coloured original was drawn first, after I scanned it onto the computer, I masked the sakura in front of and behind Dark, and then blur it, trying to get a feeling of distance into it.
Katoh	(he took out the Shine's June issue) The June cover is a contiunation of the May cover. This is Daisuke, and the other is Dark, one is day, the other is night, so these two pictures are together, but one is the front, the other is back...
Q	What are the influences of shounen and shoujo manga?
Sugisaki	From all the manga I have read before, shoujo manga influenced me on the story aspect, and shounen manga influenced my style a lot more than shoujo style. The two combined is what I have right now.
Katoh	The young mangakas like Sugisaki sensei does not have the idea of "shoujo is shoujo, shounen is shounen," that kind of boundary does not exists, so the influence is very complicated, and that results in her style right now.
Q	Do you have any influence from a specific manga?
Sugisaki	Well, I read too many manga, it's impossible to tell you all of them. No matter they are shounen or shoujo manga, I read them all, so it's hard to say which one influenced me the most.
Q	Is there a manga that impressed you the most?
Sugisaki	Um.. Because I read too many, I don't remember them. But I used to like a shoujo manga a lot, in here I can't tell you his/her name. Although she is a shoujo mangaka, but her style is shounen, all the guys she drew is so cool, like the other manga fans I also wrote him letters, and I also got a reply, makes me so happy.
Katoh	When Sugisaki debuted, she also wrote letter to this mangaka, telling him that she also started drawing manga, she recieved a reply telling her to "ganbaru"!!
Q	At this moment, you have both shoujo and shounen manga running in magazines, so when you draw, do you get confused?
Sugisaki	Of course. If I draw shounen before shoujo, I'd bring the shounen manga's emotion into the shoujo manga, vice versa.
Katoh	When drawing shouuo manga, you have to spend a lot of time in expressing the emotion inside the characters, but shounen manga is mainly action, you don't have to say a lot about the character's internal emtions. If she draws shoujo manga before shounen manga, she will unintentionally spend more time into the characters' emotions. There's something special in Sugisaki's pictures. If you just flip through the manga, you will want to stop and read carefully, this is something not a lot of shoujo mangaka has. There are many people who can draw good, but not many are attractive. And her manga has this special attractiveness to it, makes people want to read it carefully. She looks very skinny and small, but when she draws is very powerful and beautiful.
Kuramochi	Because the blood type of Sugisaki sensei is O!! Mangaka with blood type "O" is good at servicing their readers!
Katoh	Yeah!! So even if we don't tell her, she'll draw the pictures perfect. We only have to tell her that "it's for the readers, draw prettier" and she'll put all her energies into it, reader's happiness is sensei's happiness. Because I like beautiful things, so I always encourage the mangaka to draw more beautifuly, since most of us also love seeing beautiful things.
Q	Did you try other genres?
Sugisaki	I used to draw those innocent shoujo manga, but there is not a lot I can do.
Katoh	With Sugisaki's talents, I think she can draw something more different and special. She is one with a lot of ideas, and for the things she loves, she'll take it into action very seriously, so we let her to draw whatever she wants, the result is good.
Sugisaki	I don't avoid a specific kind of character. I'll change the character according to the story. If it should be cute, I'll make it cute. If it should be mature, I'll make it mature. There's no limitations.
Q	Will you try to draw the crazy, funny kind of manga?
Sugisaki	I have a lot I want to draw. For now I want to draw the new story that will begin in Decemeber. It's suitable for younger audience, the style is cute, and the storyline will be like Kindaichi kind of detective manga.
Katoh	Most common shoujo manga, the lines are very thin, that kind of things is hard to put into anime. But sensei has a lot of potential to be put into anime.
Q	How long has it been since you first debuted?
Sugisaki	It's almost 6 or 7 years..
Katoh	She was very good at drawing already when she first debuted, even the story are good, so from her manga, you don't see a lot of change, unlike other mangaka which shows some significant improvement.
Q	Did you take art class?
Sugisaki	No, I didn't learn to draw specifically. The pictures I drew in school's art class are commented to be "very strange" by my teacher. I started drawing since elementary school, but a "manga" came when I was 17, 18. All the stuff before that was not good.
Katoh	I think the colours come quite natural for sensei! Like the character is a Japanese, but she coloured the hair in purple, there is no limit, it's free to use whatever colour is available, and she's good at matching colours. I think in the covers of Asuka, Sugisaki sensei is relatively good.
Q	We know that you have worked on doujinshi before, is there any influence?
Sugisaki	Doujinshi is completely a personal hobby. I know that many mangaka are discovered through doujinshi. But I have already decided to join the competition, so doujinshi is only a hobby for me, it doesn't have much to do with how I got started.
Katoh	She is still drawing doujinshi, but because she is a professional, so the style in doujinshi and commecial manga is different.
Q	Do you use a different name or real name?
Sugisaki	I use "Sugisaki Yukiru." If there is a game or novel that I like, I will draw them out. But my main target is still the manga running in magazines.
Katoh	I think doujinshi, even if it sells very good, it will be limited by the region, but for Asuka, this kind of commercial magazines, no matter where you live, all you need to do is to order a copy from bookstore. Sugisaki sensei wants her manga read by more people, so she's only putting dojinshi as a hobby.
Q	Why do you like rabbit so much?
Sugisaki	Because I had a rabbit before, I put it beside me. it will come play with me. I think rabbits are very cute, and the back legs are very powerful, and by the way, there are so many products with rabbits...
Q	What colour is your rabbit?
Sugisaki	It's pure white colour, very beautiful.
Q	Do you think you'll draw a manga based on rabbits?
Sugisaki	I won't have the rabbit as the main character, but I'll have them as sidekicks.
Q	Which rabbit character do you like the most?
Sugisaki	Peter Rabbit. But there's another rabbit, like this... (she draws it on paper.) The eyes are very evil, and it also lie with belly facing the sky and sleep....
Katoh	Sugisaki's mother is more fun! She also likes rabbits a lot. She rearranges the rabbit decorations at the door according to seasons.
Q	What kind of guys do you like?
Sugisaki	I like the kind of guys with high self expectations, works very hard at his job.. (note, she mentioned a name, probably an actor but I'm not sure, and I don't know how to translate the name.. gomen)
Q	Do you have an official website?
Katoh	It's now under construction. Sensei has a lot of ideas, when it is ready for the audience we will let the readers in Taiwan know. Please go to there later and have a look.
Q	When D.N.Angel restarted in May, the readers send in a lot of D.N.Angel drawings!
Sugisaki	Really? Thank you very much!!
Katoh	Sensei also has a lot of fans in Japan, their ages are around 14 and 15.
Q	So what do you think of the readers in Taiwan?
Sugisaki	I received a lot of letters from Taiwan, but because they are in Chinese so I can't understand, I can only guess the meanings. During the autograph section, I think the Taiwan readers know better how to express themselves, it makes me very happy, I got a lot of energies from it!
Katoh	Sensei is very serious about her job. Please support her!

that's the end of the interview... I decided not to translate the other part of the whole article since you'll probably be confused by all the place names and people names and food names... etc.

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