Reading is a gift of friendship!
Interviewer: Please tell us about the time you were working on Under Execution, Under Jailbreak.
Araki: When my first editor became deputy editor-in-chief of Super Jump, he asked me to draw a short story for him. I wasn't sure what to do at first. But once I began working on it, I enjoyed it quite a lot. That work in particular was difficult, but I also took it as a challenge to pursue suspense above all else.
Interviewer: You also wrote a short story called The Lives of Eccentrics back when Super Jump first entered publication, didn't you?
Araki: That was also a request from my first editor. "It would be appreciated if you could draw a short story for the new magazine's launch." That's the way those often come about. They're the results of connections between people... the products of friendship, you could say. For that reason, because I lacked any intention of making a smash hit, I really enjoyed drawing it.
Interviewer: What image do you get from Super Jump?
Araki: A magazine full of scary seniors in sports clubs... (laughs). At the time, Hiroshi Motomiya, a judge for the Rookie of the Year Award, was also working on his own series, and I was very nervous to be in the same magazine as him. Cobra debuted as a new serialization in the same issue where Under Execution, Under Jailbreak was first published. Buichi Terasawa had his eye on me since before my debut, so the thought of being in the company of such people made me even more anxious.
Interviewer: Which work from your 20-year career do you think is the most impressive?
Araki: I guess it would have to be continuously drawing JoJo's Bizarre Adventure without taking a break, at least until Part 5. But even when the title changed, I never took a break... Of course, I had my meetings to keep up with, but I also went overseas to conduct interviews abroad. Looking back, I don't know how I pulled it off.
Interviewer: Do you have a message for the readers of Super Jump?
Araki: Please be the kind of reader who both values the big names and nurtures the new authors.
[Translated by HudgynS]
