YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga, Part 3 of 3
Here it is… the last part to the YaoiCon interview I did with Hinako Takanaga. Lots of good stuff so hopefully this makes up for the long wait. 
Jenny: Are you going to draw a separate story for Masaki and Kunihiro.
Sensei: Yes, yes, yes!
Jenny: Yay! I hear the cheering.
[Evan speaks to Sensei]
Evan: [Laughing] I’ve only read volume 1, it’s like, who are you talking about?!
Jenny: Will you ever draw a story with an older man in the pairing?
Evan: Older man?
Jenny: Older man based on Japan
Evan: Like 60?
Jenny: No, not that old, like 30’s… 40’s.. what’d they’d consider an older seme.
[More clarification of what ‘older’ means]
Sensei: I hadn’t really thought of that much, no. But I don’t think it’s something I don’t want to do. So there may be a time when I’m like, hey I’ll try that. Oh, but there are times that I did do drawings of 30-something, 40-something characters for books, like novels.
Jenny: Do you read boys’ love and if so, do you have a favorite book or a favorite story type?
Evan: Well, we know she reads boys’ love…
[Some discussion commences and Sensei writes down the name of two authors she enjoys… Kusama Sakae and Yamanaka Hiko]
Jenny: So these are two of her favorite authors?
Evan: Yes. That she’s reading right now. Tsundere stories are kind of her favorite though. [Some discussion of tsundere occurs here and how best to describe it but we were all at a loss] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsundere
Jenny: Do you have any new projects on the horizon that you can talk about?
Sensei: Right now obviously there’s the stuff that I’m doing with Kaiosha with Tyrant Falls in Love. We talked about the spinoff of the two characters from volume 5 so there’s that coming up on the horizon. For Libre, Awkward Silence, there’s actually a spinoff with Kagami and Sagara, [they] are going to be involved in a spinoff in the future. There’s another one I can’t tell you too much about but there’s something that I’m working on with Katokawa, it’s going to be something related to the series You Will Drown in Love.
Jenny: Oh, they’ll like to know that because they did ask about that, too.
Jenny: This is my own question because I love Tyrant. My question is what you think the reason is behind why fans love Tatsumi so much when he’s so mean?
Sensei: Well, setting aside what he does to Morinaga, there’s a bit of a difference there in how he treats other people. I think that one of the appeals to his character is that he is who he is and that he is sort of a person who finds himself bound by rules and constructs but he can be childish at the same time, which is something that people can relate to. There’s also a bit where you know that if a family member was in danger, if people he was related to were in trouble, he would be mean on their behalf or he would get belligerent with people. So I think that a lot of people can relate to that. He does some really awful things to Morinaga but I think he’s trying to ignore the fact that he’s really getting to like him.
Do you think your fans just have a thing for sadistic semes? [Catch my mistake here? Evan does… wait for it…]
Evan: How do I say sadistic because I can translate it that way but it doesn’t quite capture the right feelings? [Starts translating] Wait… isn’t he the uke? [Ha! A sign of a good translator is one who knows which character is which!]
Jenny: Sorry, yes… the uke… yes.
[I hear ‘violent uke’ somewhere in the translation!]
Evan: They both (Sensei & Editor) think that there’s a little bit to the mood there, kind of the setting where it’s that the seme loves the uke so much even though he’s a complete bastard. She also thinks that there’s definitely an appeal, that people just like that kind of a violent character. She brought up that there’s a Korean movie out about a girlfriend type who’s very, very violent towards other people and her boyfriend. [Sensei] realized while doing the story that there are people that are very, very into that kind of characteristic. But they both think that it’s like when you see a character or a person who is kind of rude and there’s still a seme or someone who will love them that much, that creates a different, special kind of appeal.
Jenny: Sometimes I think it may be that when they are sweet that 1% of the time that it’s just that much sweeter, you know?
Sensei: Ahhh… we’re working on creating more situations like that.
Jenny: Do you know if any of your other works will be animated?
Sensei: Absolutely no idea. I’m still surprised that Tyrant was made into an anime in the first place. I mean, the fact that people are looking to animate boys’ love is really sort of a recent occurrence, too. So that’s really something that we like to see but there’s nothing we can say about it. There’s absolutely no idea if one will be picked up for an anime again.
Jenny: Someone wanted to know the status of Kimi ga Koi ni Oboreru?
Sensei: The story is over. Next year there’s the thing I can’t comment too much about. There’s a series that might get started up so that’s going to be in the works.
Jenny: Have you ever considered a cross-over one-shot of Kimi ga Koi ni Ochiru & Kimi ga Koi ni Oboreru?
Sensei: Katokawa is a publisher that definitely aims for a younger audience. I think it’s a point where bringing in older characters for a younger audience… a lot of the people are young and they are just encountering this sort of thing for the first time, they won’t understand who these characters are. So I don’t think there’s too much of a chance for a crossover there but lots of things could happen, things could change.
Jenny: [No photos were allowed at YaoiCon so I asked for some clarification on that so that fans who DID take photos know why it’s so important that they NOT post those online]
[Lots of discussion takes place over this question]
Evan: What I was telling her is that it’s actually something I know a little bit about too. There are people out there who have done bad things to other mangaka with their images and there are also people who want to keep their private lives private and their published lives published so there’s a bit of a cultural difference here. Because I know a lot of Americans don’t worry about it and the worst you have to worry about is being made fun of on 4-chan, the American attitude is just like, whatever, f*ck them.
It’s not like she minds people taking her photo just because they were at YaoiCon. That’s cool, it’s a memory for you but she was really worried because there was one time she went to an event in Germany Germany
Jenny: Wow… that sounds terrible. [We had to wrap up the interview at this point] Well, if you could tell her I say thanks so much and for being so patient and answering so many fan questions. They will be very, very happy. The response was overwhelming!
My thanks again to Digital Manga for giving me the opportunity to interview such a talented and giving mangaka as Hinako Takanaga and many, many thanks to Sensei for taking so much of her limited time to answer all of these questions (1 hour 20 minutes!). I thank you and I know your fans thank you, too.
~Jennifer LeBlanc
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Thank you very much for sharing it, I think Hinako Takanaga is a great person and artist. I loved the way you made her questions and I am very excited for the information, because it will be more of Awkward silence!!! And a spin off for Kimi ga koi ni oboreru (I wonder if it would be and history about kijima XD), I´m not very interested in KunihiroxMasaki history but if is Hinako Takanaga who wants it I will read that history (I want to have the complete work from sensei). Thanks again. XOXO
[Reply to this comment]
Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
March 20th, 2011 at 11:05 PM
You’re welcome and I’m glad you enjoyed it and the format of the questions.
[Reply to this comment]
i was waiting for this part!!! and indeed had a lot of interesting parts, thank you so much for share ^-^
[Reply to this comment]
Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
March 22nd, 2011 at 4:46 PM
You’re welcome! That’s what I’m here for.
[Reply to this comment]
[...] mas finalmente o site The Yaoi Review postou a terceira e última parte da entrevista com a mangaka Hinako [...]
[...] YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga, Part 3 of 3 [...]
[...] YAOI INTERVIEW: Hinako Takanaga, Part 3 of 3 [...]
i am curious about the photo thing and if anyone has more insight into it – “…it still ended up on the Japanese network and people were being assholes about it…”
Is it because yaoi mangakas are dissappoved of in Japan?
i have always been curious in general what your average person in Japan thinks of BL? Is it looked down on? Is it a hush-hush underground type of thing? or maybe ppl dont care?
[Reply to this comment]
Jennifer LeBlanc AKA Asami's Girl Reply:
April 12th, 2011 at 5:36 PM
A lot of yaoi mangaka hide their profession from their families and although it sounds like Sensei is comfortable with her profession, she doesn’t want to deal with sites similar to our 4chan slamming her. Based on our conversation, it sounds like Japan’s websites make 4chan look like a walk in the park as far as the comments go.
[Reply to this comment]
Wow~ sensei is really awesome and funny too. Hehe~ we’re official perverts but who cares….her work is always awesome. She’s one of my favorite mangakas~
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Thanks for posting such a wonderful interview Jennifer
I found it very easy to read and well written.
Sensei seems so sweet;as does the editor and your translator Evan and you all clearly had a lot of fun doing it.
A very enjoyable read.
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Thank you very much for the interview
i really love Hinako Takanaga’s mangas!! and i love her too! She’s such a great person! aah I’m so happy ’cause she will do the Masaki’s story too!! waahh!!! thank you again!! n_n
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such a nice interview… i have allways loved takanaga-sensei’s work., she was one of the first yaoi mangakas that i ever loved and is in my top 3 favorite mangakas ever, and is such a nice thing to know her a little better through this interview… thanks a lot for uploading it, and i have to say im a little envious of you doing the interview an all.
i hope one day i can go to a yaoi-con but there are none in my country (putting the fact of being found aside) and buy the tyrant who falls in love manga… i want to buy a manga of this one… and “one piece”. then my otaku life will be complete.
thanks again for sharing the interview thingy, and lets all wait to vol 8 with patience
[Reply to this comment]
thanks for putting this interview up! it must have been so awesome for you to meet her, shes one of my favorite mangaka… and it’s cool because we have the same birthday! xD
but anyways thanks again for putting this up, much appreciated ^_^
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