Sakura Gari volume 1 Afterword

SakuraGari 1 (first volume out of three) Hard cover
Release date: 23 April 2008
Pages: 236 pages (including 4 color pages)
ISBN: 978-4-09-179026-2
Price: 962 yen + tax


Afterword

Translation

Afterword

The idea of this story came up 14 years ago. That time, my assistant was played with my characters and made a parody out of them. The setting changed as we chatted while making our scripts back then. I decided the outlook of the world, the names “Masataka” and “Souma,” then they’ve became an entirely new characters.

That time, we don’t have details of the setting. Three of us rabidly lining up episodes and when the work’s finished, it’s still has no title. And then our passion cooled down as we’re chased by deadlines, and as time went by we gradually forgot about it... but it sometimes it came up in chats. I just put it inside the storage without the feeling of letting it out.

Then one time, I feel like “I want to draw them together with my current style.” That was July 2002, eight years later. That time, I was tired of making mangas, and I feel like taking my time scribbling away just like myself in my childhood days. When I realized it, I’ve made some pages of rough sketches. Then I pulled out the 370 pages of names I write between works, that I’d only showed to my assistant. I looked at my old pictures and laughed bitterly, “How if I make name them out of this now?” (Name is a stage of simple manga sktches on notebooks). I don’t have any place to publish it, but I finished the 230 pages for first volume in 5 days. Of course in format of manga, but it was fun writing manga that’s not part of my job. Also of course this story wouldn’t be a story if it’s only based on past’s “high,” so I started from zero to decide the setting of the two main characters, era, collecting data, and constructing the story.

I was working on two series when I finished all 600 pages of this story on March 2003 (that time, I’ve already decided the title of this series). By then, I reconstructed the setting and the overall of the story, and start the name all over again, and it’s finished on December 2004. If you counted it all it would be over 1200 pages. And since I haven’t found any publisher, my only choice was to publish this as a doujinshi. But by turns of events, there’s an announcement of a new magazine called “Rinka” on May 2007, then this story became a series... it’s like a dream. And different from normal way, I didn’t discuss about this manga with the editor who’s handling me. I kneaded everything so it’s completely different with the one I first thought back then, and I handed out to my editor just with an anxiety of a debutant.

This is a historical manga, so there might be a lot of things that I’m mistaken because of my carelessness. So please don’t believe anything written on the manga (LOL). I made this not to chase history accuration, but to grasp the atmosphere and put everything on the piece of paper.

And it’s the first time since my debut, that I did everything from drawing, to direction with a peculiar expression... And I have this feeling bottled inside that, “I Have to do all my own!”
I did my best, but then gave up after 60 pages because I felt I was going to die. But then I drew everything more carefully than I did normally, so it was hard enough for me.

There’re still two volumes after this, and I would be happy if I successfully expressed both of their hearts to you readers. I will keep on trying my best, so stay with this story till it ends.

March 2008
Yuu Watase


I translated the afterword because I think it's interesting. Sorry for the grammar/vocab errors, it's not betaed.