The Nikkei (August 2024)

Published August 17, 2024

Manga

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The Nikkei (August 2024)
Interview Archive

A column from Tetsuo Hara about his friendship with Hirohiko Araki, published in The Nikkei (The Nihon Keizai Shimbun) on August 17, 2024.

Interview

TranslationTranscript

The manga artist Hirohiko Araki is one year older than me, and we both debuted in "Weekly Shonen Jump" around the same time. We first met at a manga award party shortly after our debuts, and even back then, he was a charming and handsome guy. Our respective editors were close friends during our Jump days, and many of my assistants even went to work for him after my series ended.

In Araki's masterpiece "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," there are unique standing poses called "JoJo Poses." Coincidentally, I also drew distinctive standing poses in "Fist of the North Star," but the "JoJo Poses" were a step ahead. This led me to create even more elaborate poses as well. There's only one "royal road." Looking back, we might have subconsciously influenced each other in our pursuit of that.

I don't have a wide circle of friends, but my friendship with Araki has been a rare, long-lasting one. Our wives are also close. We recently had dinner together as couples twice. We both have a knack for satire, and it's fun to sarcastically insult each other. In 2017, we did a public talk event together. I rarely make public appearances, but I agreed to it because it was with Araki.

Since I usually work as a manga artist on stories written by others, I've learned a lot about storytelling from Araki's books. When I told him this recently, he said, "Please make that widely known," so I'm using the space on this page to do just that.

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[Translated by Vish (JoJo's Bizarre Encyclopedia)]

漫画家の荒木飛呂彦さんは年が一つ上で、同じ「少年ジャンプ」出身、デビューも近い。デビューまもなく漫画賞のパーティーで初めて会ったが、当時からかわいらしいイケメンだった。ジャンプ時代、互いの担当編集者の仲が良く、私の連載が終わると、アシスタントがごっそり彼の元へ行ったこともある。

荒木さんの代表作「ジョジョの奇妙な冒険」で「ジョジョ立ち」という独特な立ちポーズがある。偶然ながら私も「北斗の拳」で特徴的な立ちポーズを描いていたが「ジョジョ立ち」はその一歩先を行っていた。さらに私も凝ったポーズを生み出す。王道は一つしかない。今思えば、それを求める中で潜在的に影響を受けあっていたのかもしれない。

私は交友関係は広くないが、珍しく荒木さんとは長く続く。妻同士も仲がいい。最近も2回、夫婦で食事をした。風刺の心があり二人で一緒に毒を吐くのも楽しみのひとつ。2017年にはイベントで対談した。私は表に出ることは少ないが荒木さんとならと思って引き受けた。

私は原作付き漫画家なので、荒木さんの著書からストーリー論を学ぶところが多い。この前本人にそう告げると「それ大々的に言ってください」と言われたので、この紙面を借りてそう言うことにする。

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