Interview with Usagi Tsuchiya, the unique 26-year-old manga artist who won the “Konomisu” Grand Prize

No cartoons or novels will feature characters you don’t like.

Drawing manga and writing novels. Although they seem like completely different creative activities, they are surprisingly similar in many ways.

There are many technical similarities. For example, a sense of tempo is emphasized in gag manga, and this is something I am aware of in novels as well. The difference is that …… I have been a debut manga artist for a year now, and in the case of drawings, the improvement is visible. But with writing, I can’t really see the growth even after finishing a piece. Even in the latter half of the year, there was still a lot of unnecessary punctuation, and I wondered if I was getting any better.

I was not confident until the very end.” He said, “I am a manga artist, and I am a novelist. There is one thing in common between myself as a manga artist and myself as a novelist.

I tried not to have people I really disliked appear in the story. The main character in the novel is an aspiring manga artist, but at first he was a dark character, overlapping with myself. I’m a bit of a negative person. …… I had written a scene where he was brooding about ‘who am I,’ but I cut that out and replaced it with a character that says, ‘I’m going to do my best! I cut that out and replaced it with a character that says, “I’m going to do my best!

I also took the characters of the bakery’s senior staff, such as Rena and the store manager, and turned them into positive characters that were actually there. This is something I am particular about when drawing manga, and I don’t intentionally introduce characters I don’t sympathize with in order to enhance the story.

In my creative works, there are often scenes that make me say, “Why are you being such a jerk? In creative works, there are often scenes that make you say, “Why are you being such a jerk? But I want to create a work that everyone can enjoy without being disturbed. That is why I am conscious of setting up characters who all do their best with conviction, and I think that is the kind of work I can create because I am a manga and novelist.