Public eye #30

Eiji Miruno, mangaka (comic artist)

This place is pretty far from the city. Do you come here often?
EM: A company I’ve worked with organized to have a barbecue, so I was asked to come. They said, ‘Come to the Hikawa International Trout Fishing Spot.’ And it’s in Okutama. However you look at it, it’s a long way away, isn’t it? How long did it take you?

A little under two hours from Shinjuku.
EM: If you have that much time, you could go all the way to Nagoya. Not that I have anything I need to go to Nagoya for… Anyway, I thought maybe coming today could lead to something else. Maybe I could get some work; for mangaka, when your serialised comic comes to an end, it’s tough.

Were you able to get some work?
EM: I got the job of watching over the fire on the barbecue.

…Has there been anything else you’ve achieved?
EM: Well, I got a suntan.

In that case, on the topic of manga – what kind of stuff do you draw?
EM: At the moment, I’d recommend something like ‘Shibusugi Gijutsu ni Otokonaki.’

What’s it about?
EM: I actually graduated from the mechatronics department at Nihon Kogakuin College. After that I got a job at a design development company, and the comic is based on the experiences I had at that time.

What kind of company was it?
EM: The windows in the toilets had iron bars on them. There were women there, but the average age was about 55. Every day was painful.

How did you spend your time at the company?
EM: I looked at the lists of the richest people, and thought, ‘One day I’ll have my own baseball team!’ Apart from that, I ate lunch.

Is there anything else you can tell us about manga?
EM: Now that you mention it, I’ve just been axed by both Shogakukan and Shueisha [publishers]. If you’re a popular artist, regular offers for serials will come your way. But all I get to do is short stuff. It’s never enough to be compiled into a single book, so I don’t really make any money.

…Is it OK for us to write this down?
EM: Yeah, just write it. It’s not like it’ll have any effect on my work, so it’s OK.

I’d like to ask you about your everyday life – is there any particular part of town that you often go to?
EM: Probably Jimbocho. But now I’ve been cut by Shogakukan and Shueisha, I won’t go there so often any more. Apart from that, Musashi-Kosugi. A friend who is a mangaka lives there.

Are a lot of your friends mangaka then?
EM: Things just naturally go that way, don’t they? We go drinking around a lot of parts of town.

What kind of drinks do you like?
EM: At the moment I like sake. There’s a place in Sangenjaya called Akaoni, which is a recent favourite of mine. As well as having a great selection of locally brewed sake from different areas, they even take special care of the storage conditions, down to the details like temperature.

How often do you go drinking each week?
EM: Quite a lot. If I haven’t been drinking the day before, I’ll have good ideas for my work, but days like that only happen about once every six months.

More from Eiji

‘I’m not a person who is particularly choosy about what they eat, but recently I’ve really been into gamjatang [a Korean soup made with pork bones].’

‘In the future I’d like to make a country and compete in the Olympics. I want to put myself in every event.’

‘I’m not particularly thinking about the future. I don’t have any place where I’d like to be when my life ends either.’