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“Kio Shimoku Art Collection: See You Tomorrow in the Clubroom” Review and Interview Notes

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The cover of an artbook featuring various characters from Kio Shimoku's manga career all mingling with one another in a clubroom.

Today is the birthday of Ogiue Chika, the namesake of this blog and my favorite character from my favorite manga, Genshiken. In celebration of this, I have decided to finally write something about the author’s recent 30th anniversary artbook titled Kio Shimoku Gashuu: Mata Ashita, Bushitsu de (Kio Shimoku Art Collection: See You Tomorrow in the Clubroom).

First, this artbook is almost everything I hoped for: large illustrations from throughout my favorite manga creator’s career. Second, there’s an extensive interview at the end, and I’ve jotted down all the notes from it that I could. It’s actually the vast majority of this post!

Whether it’s his old analog paintings to his digital work, you get to see how his style has changed. This is especially the case with his Genshiken pieces, and a part of me does miss the look of those early works. Nevertheless, it all looks great, with high-quality reproductions of even things like DVD box sets. A lot of merch I never got, I can at least have their art. Kio actually re-scanned a lot of it!

The illustrations also include guest art for anthologies and such: 

  • Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere
  • Gundam: The Origin
  • Ashita no Kyouko-san
  • Yuruyuri
  • FotoKura
  • Night on the Galactic Railroad Musical

Only thing that’s missing is Spotted Flower, though I’m sure Kio would have included it if he could. 

So this is naturally highly recommended for Kio Shimoku fans.

And now, here are all my notes from the interview. It even includes comments about Kio’s wife, whom he pretty much never talks about!

Early Life and Family

Kio Shimoku was born in Shizuoka in 1974, and moved to Tokyo when he was two years old. He attended kindergarten in Kokubunji, Tokyo. In elementary school, he moved to Chiba Prefecture and spent a large chunk of his life there, to the extent that he strongly identifies with Chiba. He was in Chiba through high school and went to Tokyo after college, but then returned to Chiba.

Two of his manga, The Fourth-Year (Yonensei) and The Fifth-Year (Gonensei), are set in Kisarazu, Chiba because Kio went to college there and thought it’d make for easy reference material.

Kio’s dad worked for an insurance company, and didn’t really oppose him becoming a manga artist. His mom was a housewife but used to be an office worker. He has a brother who’s six years older, so there’s kind of a generation gap between them. A lot of the manga Kio read as a kid was his brother’s: Jump titles like Black Angels, Cat’s Eye, Ring ni Kakero. The manga that he bought himself were Captain Tsubasa, Dr. Slump, Hokuto no Ken, JoJo. The biggest title for him was Doraemon, and he remembers drawing doodles of Perman’s helmet. 

Against expectations, he actually more of an outdoors kid. His dad did judo, and he lived in a rural area in Chiba. Kio’s activities included bug-catching and going to the beach. He also practiced judo himself in middle school, which has made it easy to depict characters that do the same (like Hato from Genshiken Nidaime).

But as active a kid as he was, Kio still liked to read and draw. He was there for the Famicom boom, and his #1 indoor hobby was Gunpla. His brother bought Gundam and Guncannon kits and gave the Guncannon to him. He played with the kits before he ever saw Gundam, which he eventually did when he saw the original movie trilogy. Kio wanted Gunpla so badly that he drew his own imaginary modeling store—not the model themselves but the store in which he’d buy them.

Some other titles he liked: Esper Mami (he was influenced by its SF flavor), Fujiko Fujio’s Land (he liked all the nude scenes), Bouken Gabotenjima, Scramble Egg (it was one of his brother’s books). 

Another big one was Plamo-Kyoshiros, which was his “Bible,” especially with all the customized Gundam model kits it showed. He used all the tech he had available to him at the time on a Qubeley, and then stopped after just the one. Master Grades came out when he was in college. 

Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind was also a huge influence from elementary to high school. He would trace over Miyazaki’s art and tried to draw just like him, but found it difficult as a kid to the point of being discouraged, thinking, “I have no talent!” In middle school, though, Kiki came out and he found he could draw like Miyazaki a little better. Drawing and painting using watercolors, he thought he might have what it takes.

A friend of his asked if he wanted to make a manga together, and Kio agreed. That same friend is the one who taught him about manga tools, like nib pens. Kio volunteered to do backgrounds, and was inspired by Oga Kazuo and Yamomoto Nizou. He had an interest in fine arts, but it’s not like he never drew characters. There was a particular drawing of Elpeo Ple from Gundam ZZ next to a bicycle, with a seiso expression and wearing a beret, that he really liked. He’d focus especially on Ple’s face when trying to replicate it. He learned to do eyes from copying the artist who drew it, Kitazume Hiroyuki. 

In his third year of middle school, Animage started releasing Roman Albums and Art of books, and it made him want to become an animator. However, he was sad to discover that you had to be at least 18, and gave up.

College Life and Becoming a Manga Artist

In high school, he seriously pursued trying to become a manga artist because by that time, he found that he could handle all aspects of manga making himself. He got so into making manga that he basically missed out on the entirety of the Super Famicom/Game Boy boom. 

At 17, Kio got a newcomer award in Sunday magazine. As for why he submitted to Sunday instead of Jump, It was around middle to high school that he became more of a fan of the former. The first Sunday manga that caught his attention was Kyuukyoku Choujin R. Then there was Obi wo Gyutto ne by Kawai Katsutoshi, which actually showed fanart at the end of the collected volumes. His art was published three times, but he never managed to win an autographed signboard. But when he contributed to Kawai’s mook, he actually got the autograph, which made him really happy. Other big titles he read at the time were Ranma ½, Spriggan, Patlabor, Ghost Sweeper Mikami, and Ushi and Tora.

His first submission to Sunday was about a boy who worked at a secondhand bookstore, except the “secondhand books” were actually stolen goods. Kio thinks it was a pretty plain and unspectacular idea. He liked secondhand bookstores, and would go into them whenever he saw one. He also tried to draw manga of the adventurous kind in the vein of Studio Ghibli. There was one that got to 50 pages of the manuscript, but he never finished it. The thing really just consisted of whatever came to mind as he was making it.

When asked why he prefers to make more everyday life works than dramatic stuff, Kio says that while his artistic path began with Miyazaki anime, it’s the portrayals of everyday life in Miyazaki’s works that he built on. 

Kio had worked with Sunday, but he never debuted with them. This is because he couldn’t keep working with his editor there. Kio was asked to do things like come up with 10 new ideas before their next meeting, and he just found it impossible.

If he had debuted with Sunday back then, he wouldn’t have gone to college. But he did while majoring in Nihonga (Japanese painting) at University of Tsukuba. At the interview to get into the university, he lied and said that he really wanted to become a Nihonga artist. He chose Nihonga because he thought he could transfer the brush skills he learns to making manga. Western painting tools like charcoal aren’t really used in manga. He worked on manga while also doing his college work. 

He was in the dorms his first year but lived on his own in an apartment for years 2 through 4. He and his friends would go over to each other’s places and hang out and eat. There was really nothing to do at Tsukuba in the 90s. The Tsukuba Express didn’t even exist back then. Students would hear noises and swear other students were having sex. (Not much else to do otherwise, in terms of gossip.)

Kio had lots of good friends but not a group of otaku he was close with, like in Genshiken. However, he had one senpai he looked up to, who had a lot of esoteric otaku knowledge and was really mature. Tanaka is partly influenced by him. 

There was a University of Tsukuba Society for the Study of Modern Visual Culture which is the name basis for Genshiken, but Kio only was a member for half a year. He did draw a sign for them as a first-year for a culture festival in autumn, but he doesn’t remember exactly what he drew. 

He’s not a fan of huge gatherings and so what he mostly did was hang out with 3 to 4 people and play fighting games. Later, his editor at Afternoon said to Kio that it sure seems like Kio had a fun college life, to which Kio agreed that maybe he did. 

Kio’s Early Manga

Kio is asked if the darkness in his early works from Ten no Ryouiki (his debut title) to The Fifth-Year was a reflection of his school experience, to which he replies that he’s not really sure. At that time, he would put everything he was thinking about into his manga, and his work reflected that. He is the type to dwell and ruminate on things to the point of self-loathing, and he thinks the way he approached the subject of romance came from that. He combined his own experiences with stories he heard from others, though he says he did not have a very active love life personally. 

Kio did not originally plan to be a manga author who focuses on romance and relationships, and Kio Shimoku was meant to be a one-off throwaway pen name. He wanted to do action instead. Ten no Ryouiki was meant to be practice. Looking back, it actually turned out to be just that. 

He wanted to do an entertainment-focused Eastern culture action series next in the vein of Shirow Masamune’s Orion or Fujisaki Ryu’s Hoshin Engi. But when he looked at his old rough manuscript for it, he’s glad he didn’t.

Genshiken was born out of wanting to make something with more entertainment value, and both Kio and his editor at the time felt like Genshiken could work. However, he didn’t feel particularly enthusiastic about it because he thought he’d end up getting bashed for it. In fact, up until serialization, he was trying to avoid it. He even drew the short manga Krakatit no Machi during that time.

The Town of Krakatit (a dark and obtuse work) is named after the novel Krakatit by Karel Čapel, and Kio thinks the book might have really struck a chord with him back then, or perhaps he heard that the novel was similar to his idea. He does remember being asked by another manga creator at an end-of-year party why in the world he decided to make a story like that. It was right before Genshiken’s serialization and Kio wanted to forget everything. He’s still not sure what he was feeling, but maybe it was a desire for total ruin.

Both The Town of Krakatit and The Fifth-Year have violent climaxes. Kio didn’t intend or want for The Fifth-Year to involve an attempted stabbing, but he felt that it had to go there based on how the story developed. For Krakatit no Machi, it was because he wanted to draw a more heavy-set character. The interviewer points out that Kio has drawn a lot of fatter characters over the years.

Genshiken and a Stylistic Change

In regard to his changing style, especially from the early works to Genshiken, Kio says it was a conscious choice to improve the entertainment factor of his manga. However, you can tell that it’s still in a transition period in Volume 1 of Genshiken based on the art. As for how exactly he tried to change his art style, Kio worked towards a more semiotic way of drawing, where the designs convey who the characters are. Kugayama was the earliest design. 

Kio chose their characteristics by drawing random lots (kujibiki) and building from there—something he only rediscovered recently after finding an old memo. For example, with Madarame, he got “bowl cut” and “glasses,” and decided what he’d be like based on that. Of course, when finalizing the character, he didn’t leave it to chance. He feels that Madarame, Tanaka, and Kugayama are the most successful designs in terms of semiotics, but with Sasahara, he actually forgot to design him until the last moment. Sasahara ended up being made with no strong features because he was supposed to be the character who first enters the club. 

The premise of Genshiken actually began with the love triangle of Madarame, Saki, and Kohsaka. Kio realizes that they’re basically Maeno, Takeda, and Kyouko from Ping Pong Club. It wasn’t intentional, but looking back, it was a dynamic he loved. Ohno was originally designed to be more cringey, but based on the trajectory Genshiken took, he decided to go for someone who would be more popular with readers. Now, he realizes she’s essentially just Kamiya from Ping Pong Club.

Kio is glad that people say his portrayals of otaku reflect the times. His starting concept was wanting to draw otaku as normal people. Genshiken is a work from the period after the one where otaku were getting bashed the hardest. Kio didn’t want to have messy relationship stuff in Genshiken, but couples ended up happening anyway. He thinks this makes things feel more real. 

He didn’t do any research for Genshiken’s first generation, but for the second gen, he attended Comiket and interviewed circles that were aimed towards female audiences and even sat in circle spaces all day. He got to hear conversations between creators and customers as a result. 

However, he has participated in Comiket as a creator before. This was because Ogiue was tabling at ComiFes in the manga, and Kio felt he needed to experience it firsthand. He considers himself an otaku, but he actually hasn’t gone to Comiket much. The reason is that he winds up buying too much other porn because he loves horny art. In fact, he originally bought a Mac instead of a Windows PC so he wouldn’t end up buying so much eroge.

In response to the unanticipated developments that came with Ogiue’s character, Kio says he never thought the story would go in the direction it did. He did create Kugayama as someone who draws, but he’s not supposed to be particularly good at it. Ogiue was created because the story had plenty of otaku-as-consumer characters but not otaku as creators. She was a challenge to work with, but it was incredibly fun.

Genshiken was planned to be a manga that ran in real time, so with a new chapter every month, a month would have passed in the series. However, with Ogiue’s arc, the timeline kind of went out the window and time had to pass at an accelerated rate in chapters 50 through 54 so that the series could end during graduation season. Some of the stories during that time ended up in the extras of the volume releases.

Into Kio’s Psyche

The interviewer points out that Kio has a lot of scenes of characters expressing fear at the prospect of revealing their true selves to others: Ogiue and Hato in Genshiken, but also in The Fifth-Year. Kio didn’t remember that he had a scene like that in The Fifth Year, but he believes this is something connected to his fundamental way of thinking. Even his erotic doujinshi Zenbu Sensei no Sei (and its sequel) feature a girl (and later her mom) learning about who they “really are.”

The interviewer also describes Genshiken as a story that began with entertainment in mind only to dig deep into people’s very beings, which seems to be a real Kio Shimoku–ism. Kio says that Genshiken is a work that even when trying to summarize it offers resistance. It’s also the work he’s re-read the most out of his own creations, first for Genshiken Nidaime and now occasionally for Spotted Flower. Kio believes that Genshiken was such a good thing for him that the rest of his life is just extra change.

In terms of the portrayal and exploration of sexuality, Kio didn’t intend for it to be indicative of the time. The belly band on the Japanese Volume 8 originally said “The Love of Otaku,” but Kio asked to change it because he wasn’t trying to show a normal portrayal of love. Rather, it was about exploring all the various characters’ individual ways of love. This idea later applied to Hato as well.

As for how the character of Hato came to be, he knew early on that he wanted Nidaime to focus on a mainly female cast, but that he wanted one male character. Kio had in mind two possibilities: a guy who looked like a girl (i.e. Hato) or a big but gentle-feeling dude, like Yamada’s dad in The Dangers in my Heart. He made two rough manuscripts, one for each character, with the former ending up going ridiculous places and the latter being pretty normal.  But then, Kio learned that there are ways for men to change their voices to be more feminine, and it all clicked. Kio has at times kind of wanted to become a girl himself, so he put that in there too. 

The interviewer thought Madarame would actually start dating Hato. Kio drew the Madarame romantic prospects thing to just see where it would end up, and he originally thought it would be that the guy gets with no one. 

Kio and His Wife

Sex and love have always been a part of Kio’s work. His wife, Kami-san, described Genshiken as low-energy horny. Kio starts from the fundamental idea of “I myself am horny.” He actually was seen drawing porn in middle school by his family, and he thinks this trauma may have made him unable to draw erotic art for a long time. This repression may be what undergirds his work. His work might not be about sex but rather about masturbation in the sense of knowing what you individually desire. This is where the notion that “drawing manga is a form of masturbation” enters his thoughts. Masturbation comes up in multiple works of his, and Kio thinks it has to do with wanting to hide your real self. 

Kio got married in 2000, and it’s a year he can recall with ease. It was a time when his manga wasn’t really selling, and he decided to get married without putting any thought into it. 

He met his wife in college. She’s actually the first person he showed his rough manuscript of Genshiken, before even his editor. At the time, it was because he wanted to make a manga about otaku that appealed to normal folk, and she was the test case. Her impressions ended up in Saki to a degree as well, like the way Saki pronounces the word “anime.” 

Kio showed his wife Nidaime early on, but can’t quite remember when it comes to Hashikko Ensemble. He did not show her Spotted Flower, but Kami-san did remark that it was probably just Kio and the Rakuen editor Iida-san doing whatever the hell they want. 

Jigopuri wasn’t well received, but Kio felt that baby-raising was the only thing he could make manga about at the time. 

Kio relates to characters like Madarame who feel like they never really grow up. He feels that even when he’s an elderly old man, he won’t feel like an adult. 

Kami-san is into classical music, and took Kio to watch a men’s choir. Afterwards, she said to him that this could be good subject matter for something, though she was thinking about it more like BL involving working adults. Kio was working on a different plan at the time, but when he brought up the men’s choir idea to his editor, it got the okay, with the technical high school at the backdrop. This makes it different from all his previous college-set works. 

Because he didn’t have much experience with the subject, Kio had to do a lot of research. To portray the singing, he employed various techniques like using different density of tones for high and low notes, employing gradients on lyrics, layering text when multiple people were singing, changing opacity levels, etc. He did all this with satisfaction. 

Right now, he doesn’t have any new ideas he really wants to draw, or at least things he thinks he has time for. On a personal level, he did do Sister Wars lately. The idea for it actually came from his wife, who misspoke slightly and said “Si…Star Wars.” From there, they joked about how Sister Wars sounds like an eroge, that the Jedi would all be girls, and the Padawans would go, “Onee-samaaa!” Though it’s not as if Kio is a super-huge Star Wars fan. 

The release of the art book makes him feel the full extent of his 30-year career in manga, even if it doesn’t include Spotted Flower.

Genshiken, Childhood Comics, and More: Kio Shimoku at Umeda Lateral Talk Notes

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Kio recently had a talk at Umeda Lateral, an Osaka-based live music house and talk venue, to celebrate the release of his new artbook. Below are my notes from watching it. 

(Unfortunately, the VOD is no longer available. Also, screenshots are not allowed.)

There are three people: the host, Kio, and his editorial manager Moteki.

For the event, Kio drew special signboards featuring the Genshiken characters, one per character: Ogiue, Madarame, Sue, Ohno, and Saki.

As previously known, Kio has a very deep voice. 

Apparently, it’s normal for the hosts and speaker to drink on stage at this venue. Kio’s first order was draft beer.

He has been to Osaka before, for work and for sightseeing. Was on the train for 9 hours to get there.

The artbook was not his idea. It was Moteki’s, who brought it up because it’s Kio’s 30th anniversary. Kodansha wouldn’t do it themselves? Moteki actually reached out to him through Pixiv.

Kio wanted to reply, and he got motivated to actually make the book happen.

There were cases where Kio was looking through his old work and thought, “Did I draw this?”

Starting doing digital after Genshiken, starting with Jigopuri. At the time, he still scanned in his pencils, though.

Works prior to that transition were newly scanned for the artbook. He had a bit of experience doing it for the Shinsouban (the special edition that has new covers and changes the nine volumes of the original into five).

Kio admitted that he doesn’t actually remember much of his works before Genshiken. Moteki jokingly expresses concern that this pre-Genshiken period was eight years.

Moteki: Ogiue is a character who really takes the story places, but is there anyone from before Genshiken like that?

Kio: Nope, I don’t think so.

Kio actually doesn’t think Ogiue is that much of a driving force. Madarame was originally planned to be there from the start in some form.

Kio showed early concept notes about Genshiken. At the time, it was still written in kanji.

The original 3 characters were early versions of what would become Saki, Kohsaka, Madarame.

Saki (or her prototype) was the original protagonist. Prototype Kohsaka’s gender hadn’t been determined yet—the character was labeled “Hero (Heroine?)” One note mentions that he maybe looks like Squall from Final Fantasy VIII. 

The school setting was based on Chuo University, just like in the actual Genshiken.

Kio wanted to make the series focused on character gags.

Prototype Madarame looked very different. Labeled as the “Rival.” Second-Year, otaku. 

All the characters are listed with a specialized otaku genre. Proto-Kohsaka and Proto-Mada are both labeled as being into “everything.”

All the characters are labeled as virgins.

Prototype Kugayama was labeled as being a third-year, having a good personality, and also being a lolicon. Otaku genre: anime.

Another character with glasses specialized in games, and another shorter character has manga.

One unused design was a girl who was a second-year. She was a little unattractive, but with big boobs. (This might be the prototype for Ohno, but they look quite different.)

Kio does not actually particularly like kujibiki lotteries. But it is funny that Kujibiki becomes a plot device in Nidaime when all the girls are drawing straws for the order in which each girl has their date with Madarame.

Kio ordered octopus karaage next.

The first gunpla he built was probably the Guncannon. He built it right before the Gundam boom, when he was in elementary school. He has an older brother who was buying gunpla before him. Actually, it might not have been the Guncannon. Kio mentioned not having a good memory.

Did Kio have an inscrutable senpai like the original club chairman? He had senpai, but he wasn’t sure if they were quite like that. But Tanaka was based on someone Kio knew—a person who loved plastic model kits. 

Kio used to build a lot of gunpla and kits, and broke them at the joints all the time. But with more recent models, he remarked that they really don’t break easily. He also compared the old days of gunplay that used polycaps to the improvements of modern kits.

For the scene in Genshiken with the gunpla, Kio tried to break the hip joint of a real model for reference, but it wouldn’t snap. But he wanted to do the scene, so he had to force a break.

He checked with Bandai if showing a busted gunpla would be okay, and they said as long as the break was shown to be by accident and not on purpose, it was okay.

Kujibiki Unbalance was made to be an original parody series because getting permissions for actual things was difficult.

Host mentions that he wasn’t a pure otaku, and it’s because of Genshiken’s numerous reference lines that he got to be one. Chapter titles are references, and Kio had to constantly rack his brain for them. Kio does not consider himself a high-information-retention otaku.

He had a desire to draw and write about the old-style 90s-era otaku of his own generation. 

When Kio got Genshiken serialized, it made him feel like a real pro. When it got an anime he was ecstatic. “It felt like I had won at life.”

Kio was worried that if he tried to make a manga about the newest things, it would quickly feel dated, so that’s why the otaku stuff was more 1990s.

In that time, video tapes were still the standard, and official recordings of the anime were still done on tapes. He was okay with the work, but saw the struggles of the anime’s production in the anime, accepting that those are kind of inevitable.

The host asked about the OVA, believing that Kio wrote it himself, but Kio himself didn’t remember if that’s the case. He did work closely with Genshiken 2, as well as the original Kujibiki Unbalance anime.

Kio mentioned being involved with a scene involving Tanaka and Ohno, and the host instantly guessed correctly that it’s the spicy scene of them getting together. In response, Kio asked, “Why did you know what I was talking about?” It was later that he realized the scenes he drew for the fictional eroge Ohno made Tanaka play were just used straight-up in the anime. 

Kio showed his actual old notebooks.

“It’s not your dark history.”

Kio: But it is.

Kio loved Famicom Detective Club, and made his own story based on Famicom Detective Club II.

He wanted to make a manga of Ghibli’s Laputa in middle school, so he drew one. Here, he showed it to the audience, page by page. He even did the title logo. However, as he turned each page, he would have his eyes closed because he didn’t want to look at them.

(It actually looks really well drawn for a middle schooler.)

Kio actually wanted to change the story partway through in a way that would make it more interesting, but he couldn’t quite decide on where to take things after they get to the fortress, so he stopped drawing it.

Another notebook is filled with his attempts to draw like Miyazaki, clearly copying famous Nausicaa images. He also feels embarrassed about these.

He also showed that he made lots of drawings of Elpe Ple from Gundam ZZ.

He didn’t watch Gundam as it aired, but he did keep up with Dunbine and L-Gaim in elementary school (4th grade, 6th grade, thereabouts).

Also showed a piece of fanart for Metal Armor Dragonar in there, along with a drawing of the Queen Mansa from Gundam ZZ.

Because Kio was clearly into fantasy-like settings as a kid, the host asks if he ever wanted to make manga along those lines. Kio says that he actually worked on a real manuscript from high school to college. “Any plans to announce it?” “None.”

After the break, Kio got a lemon sour. Host a highball. Moteki got another draft beer.

Host talked about how some people considered Nidaime to be like a fan sequel. After the first series ended, everyone tried to imagine what would come next.

Kio got back to drawing Genshiken after doing the art for a budget edition box set of the anime (the ones with the white cases), which led to the one-shot, and then he was asked by Kodansha if he could come back for a short run, like a single volume. (Nidaime ended up running for 11.)

Kio hadn’t planned to resolve Madarame and Saki. Couldn’t it have just ended at the school culture festival?

The second half of the talk was Kio answering questions they had received from fans.

Will Spotted Flower get an anime?

Kio: That’s not up to me.

There are also challenges to getting a story like that made into anime. If he had to say whether he’d want one or not, he’d say yes.

What was a gathering spot for otaku in your days?

Kio was only in a circle for half a year. But there had to have been a place where people gathered to draw.

Kio was in the art club in high school, but it didn’t have an otaku feel. Same for middle school. But the otaku in middle school did meet up after school.

Kio actually bought his own Neo-Geo machine! They reminisced about the massive cartridges.

What works are you into recently?

Manga: A current work in Harta magazine by the author of Hinamatsuri, Ohtake Masao, called J⇔M.

Doesn’t watch dramas. Closest is taiga historical dramas like Kimi Hikaru e.

Couldn’t decide for anime or movies (mainly watches anime movies).

If you drew Genshiken now, what would the characters be into?

VTubers, not that he knows much about them.

Moteki mentioned that Kio must have done research about fujoshi circles and slang for Nidaime, but Kio said he was doing it since the first series. He got some things wrong, though. In college, Kio was surprised to discover fan-derivative works and 18+ doujinshi in college (much like Sasahara).

How did you decide who Madarame would end up with?

Kio didn’t even know who it would be as he was drawing it. He was thinking of having it conclude with Madarame alone, but he actually said to himself, “Are you really going to end it this way?” Even he as the author couldn’t accept that.

Moteki: When it comes to The Fifth-Year and Genshiken with Ogiue, these characters realized about the kind of people they are, and it helped them decide on their feelings. But Madarame even to the very end did not have that self-awareness.


Also, lots of people thought it’d be Sasahara’s sister, because she’s so similar to Saki.

Kio: Yeah, even now. When you mention it, that pairing could’ve worked. But I wasn’t thinking about Saki (or Keiko’s similarities to Saki).

Kio-sensei switched to tablet in Nidaime. How was it?

Actually, Kio switched during Jigopuri. Back then, he still drew the manuscripts on paper and scanned them in before doing digital drawing over them. Eventually, he switched to all digital.

Is there something you feel about the Otaku of the 2010s and 2020s?

Based on what he sees with his daughter and her classmates, it’s almost like there’s not really a distinction between otaku and non-otaku. 

Host: Even gyaru are into Frieren.

Kio: Maybe there’s no need for a series like Genshiken anymore.

Kio wanted to do Nidaime as a series where there were more members of the club who were like Ogiue and Ohno along with one new male character. However, he actually thought up a version with a more typically masculine guy, but thought it felt a little too normal. 

Host: It’s like the barrier between otaku and non-otaku is gone.

What’s important to remember while making works?

Kio: I can’t really think of anything. Maybe, if you think of it too much like work, you’ll lose what makes it unique. Don’t try too hard to make a “manga-like manga.” Don’t focus on how things are supposed to go at the expense of making it interesting.

Genshiken wasn’t intended to capture the zeitgeist, but it ended up doing so.

Did you see the online reaction to Genshiken or the doujinshi during serialization?

Kio did not look at comments. The people at Kodansha looked at it though. 

Kio bought all the doujinshi of Genshiken he saw. Didn’t have any problems with any content, knowing that it’s up to the doujin creators. He might occasionally check out the website of one of the artists. 

He got some of them for the Genshiken 8.5 doujin project.

What was it like working for Afternoon?

Thought of Shounen Sunday first for Kodansha, but Kio remembers Parasyte being a big title. Minor no Pride, Major no something (a cooking manga).

In response to Ogiue is drawing for Afternoon in the manga: “It’s meta.”

What do you think of making H-manga?

Kio always wants to do it. He’s working on Part 2 of his doujinshi project, and the manuscript has gotten to 134 pages. 

Moteki: What was the reaction to you announcing an 18+ doujinshi? Was it like, “Here we go!!!”

Not a particularly strong response, but when Kio posted it on Fanza (an adult site), some people who were fans asked him if it’s okay to do this at his age (he’s 50).

Can you do a live drawing?

He was unsure of his live drawing ability. Before the talk, Kio ended up putting a lot of time into the five signboard drawings at the talk, as well as the 30 that were included in specific copies of the artbook.

Host and Moteki tried to convince him, but no go.

Will there be more Genshiken merch?

It’s not up to him.

A lot of questions about how Kio decided who Madarame would be with, actually.

Are there any characters who acted in ways you didn’t intend?

All of them.

During the nose hair chapter (with Saki and Madarame), Kio planned to have a story about that, but went at it by thinking “What would the characters do in this situation?”

Before a manuscript, he’ll draw freely. For Genshiken, it’s like the ideas would just readily come. When drawing the characters, he would think about how they would behave. He compares figuring character’s lines to taking a dust cloth and wringing it tightly until the exact words drip out. 

Moteki: In terms of characters moving on their own, Ogiue is a well-known example, right?

Kio had considered sticking her with Kuchiki as a kind of “mutually cringe couple.”

Kio is unsure of what he needs to do in serializations. With one-shots, in contrast, it’s harder to play around. He’s still not sure what to do.

At first, Kio didn’t use any assistants. But that’s when he was young. Now he’s 50 and he can’t do the same anymore.

Weekly serialization is the “territory of monsters.” Knowing what weeklies are like, he understands the need for assistants there. But if someone came to him asking if he could do one, he’d consider it and try to figure out a way it could work.

Kio worked as Takano Fumiko-sensei’s assistant, but for only one day.

What otaku works or genres have you been into recently?

He watched some of Usada Pekora playing Elden Ring. He’d have her on as background noise while working on manga.

He also listens to music while thinking up ideas and working on manga. When he’s doing tasks with not a lot of information, he uses ambient noise. When doing the initial drawings, he listens to stuff like J-Pop. After that, more editorial/critical Youtube channels. 

What have you enjoyed recently?

Kio has a hard time thinking of anything, but he did travel to Gunma recently. He went to Ninja Gakkai, a ninja education camp.

Among your works, are there any scenes that stick out most in your memory?

The first thing that came to mind is the nose hair story, particularly when Madarame leaves the clubroom and is looking back at it from the outside across the courtyard, and you can see the light in the clubroom still on.

Moteki: Which character is your type?

Ohno, in terms of sexiness. The scene when she first appears in a mask is an example of her heroine appeal. Though Kio’s been told that the shifting heroine focus for Genshiken is unusual: from Saki to Ohno to Ogiue.

“How did you think of a plot like that?” 

“I didn’t.”

Moteki likes Saki best. So does the host.

The signboards got raffled off at the end!

A Farewell to Arms, the Studio Behind Genshiken 2

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Last week, the Japanese animation studio Arms declared bankruptcy. Their legacy is primarily that of sex and fanservice, with titles like Mezzo Forte, Queen’s Blade, Another Lady Innocent, and Ikkitousen from Dragon Destiny on under their belts. But for me, Arms is first and foremost the studio behind the anime Genshiken 2. 

Ogiue Maniax started right around when Genshiken 2 first began airing in 2007, and its DVDs were the second anime I ever imported from Japan. In the photo above, there’s also a CD of Genchoken, a Genshiken 2-related radio show starring voice actors Mizuhashi Kaori (Ogiue) and Hiyama Nobuyuki (Madarame). 

One unique feature of Genshiken 2 compared to all other adaptations of the manga is that Arms treated it like the other works in their library and brought their, er, considerable talents to fore. Not only was artist Urushihara Satoshi (of Langrisser, Plastic Little, and Another Lady Innocent fame) the animation director on the opening, but there were more than a few scenes depicting extremely vivid nerd fantasies. The most famous might just be Ogiue’s fully animated fujoshi imagination regarding Sasahara and Madarame.

In that sense, Arms’s approach felt like an attempt to give Genshiken a more late-night anime appeal, for better or worse, and the DVDs did indeed uncensor the really racy stuff. However, while Arms certainly went places the manga never did (and thus potentially could have turned away fans of the original), I think that their execution of Genshiken 2 in some ways anticipates the sexually charged alternate Genshiken that is Spotted Flower. In fact, Arms probably would have been the right studio to animate that series if it were possible.

So thanks, Arms. Very rarely do my favorite characters get this much love, and you gave fans of the Genshiken boys and girls something unforgettable.

That all said, bankruptcy isn’t always the end. Who knows? Maybe that Spotted Flower adaptation isn’t completely out of the question.

The Ambiguously Vague Gestures: Genshiken II, Chapter 81

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After the intensity and emotion of the last chapter, this month’s winds down with a post-confession Madarame. In order to try and cheer him up, the old Genshiken girls (+ Hato and Kohsaka) cosplay for him, and for a brief moment the old impassioned expository Madarame makes a triumphant return. As Tanaka and Kugayama leave with Madarame for some male bonding, Saki encourages Madarame to not let go entirely of his past with Genshiken. There also seems to be some bad blood between Keiko and Hato, though the reasons are unclear.

As is the case with recent previous chapters, this one also referenced an old anime, in this case the title of Akuma-kun‘s final episode. Appropriate, because whether you want to call it the denouement of dramatic structure or the ketsu of kishoutenketsu, Chapter 81 feels like a wrap-up of the crazy developments that have happened over the past few months with Madarame, at least when it comes to his feelings for Kasukabe. As such, this chapter feels a lot less overt with its significance and its presentation of information compared to last time, but there are still plenty of moments which radiate with potential. As always, this isn’t an end (well obviously because the manga isn’t finished but you know what I mean), but a continuation.

There’s one scene in particular this chapter that I’ve read over and over because I’m not sure how to interpret it. As the girls (and guys) cosplay for Madarame from the gender-bender game that Kohsaka worked on, Kasukabe herself joins in as well. Before we see Saki in un-drag though, we see her having a conversation with Kohsaka about her character, who’s supposed to be “boyish,” to which Saki retorts that it’s actually a boy. Then, we see two characters off-panel speaking to each other (their words are visible but they aren’t), who I’m pretty sure are Kohsaka and Kasukabe. One of them asks if they accidentally “let it slip” and the other says that it’s not about that. I believe we’re supposed to read it as Kohsaka having hid the details of his game from Saki and her response being that the content of his game is besides the point. However, because of the way she says “it’s a boy,” and the follow-up conversation about a secret being out, and the fact that we see Saki go from what others have charitably referred to as “maternity clothes” to an outfit with a corset such that we can never get a clear idea of her figure, and the fact that even with the corset she looks bigger than she used to (notably in the chest area), I feel as if this chapter is lending credence to the theory that Saki is indeed pregnant.

I might just very well be overanalyzing, and things like Saki’s slightly larger figure and larger breasts might just be either a stylistic change by Kio or a sign that she’s growing older, but it just has me wondering. If my speculation turns out to be unfounded, I’m of course fine with that.

This chapter we get to see the “old” Madarame make a return as he muses on the very concept of “trap” characters and how there are different things to consider when translating them to 3D, a rant which Saki quickly reminds everyone is reminiscent of the Madarame she first met and despised. Is this scene a sign of Madarame getting his otaku groove back? Is it the case that the last few years have been a continuous trial and now that it’s over with he can go back to being himself, or is it that Madarame is trying to force it? Is it a regression to a past identity, or is it a progression, a nerd phoenix rising from the ashes of rejection and anxiety? I’d like to believe that the old Madarame is a new Madarame, and I’m definitely looking forward to where his character will go from here.

As a side note, if you’ve ever wondered what I meant by density of information looking unusual in manga, just look at the page above where Madarame is ranting. If you’re used to manga at all, just the whole page seems to stray from how Genshiken usually flows, though that’s what also gives this page its impact.

An interesting thing I’ve noticed about Madarame’s character is that Madarame seems to get paired with more characters than anyone else both inside Genshiken itself and among fans both English-speaking and Japanese. There’s of course the whole ordeal with Kasukabe, but there’s also Ogiue’s Sasa x Mada fantasies, Angela putting the moves on him hard, the ambiguity of Hato’s friendship, Kohsaka feigning (?) interest this very chapter, and then on top of that I’ve seen fanart and such going all the way back to 2005 that put him with Keiko and Sue, well before they interacted with him like they do now. It might just be that, as Hirano Kouta of Hellsing fame puts it, that “Madarame is the most moe character in Genshiken,” but I just find it interesting that so many, fictional or otherwise, seem to want Madarame to be happy (or at least less pathetic). It’s probably a testament to his enduring character and the fact that he is above all others the quintessential nerd/otaku.

In any case, it makes Saki’s comment that Madarame could very well make his own harem feel both tongue-in-cheek, yet somehow serious, though in the end I interpret it more as Saki telling Madarame that he is actually attractive in his own way. That said, I have to wonder how awkward it would be to have a girl who just rejected you also tell you that it’s okay for you to keep the sexy(ish coplay) photos you have of her. That’s the kind of scenario that so many nerds ae desperate to avoid (“What if she knows that I find her sexually attractive?”), but it’s a new world I guess. I wouldn’t be surprised if Madarame ends up throwing them out anyway, though I also wouldn’t be surprised if he keeps them.

I’ve used this comparison to describe multiple characters over the series, but Keiko is something of a Saki-type for Genshiken II. Yajima is a Saki in the sense that she’s a fish out of water and has the dry wit, but Keiko serves the role of being the character with the most “real world” experience, though as Sasahara remarks it’s more the result of making numerous mistakes. Still, it gives Keiko a type of perceptiveness that’s lacking in the current members of Genshiken, and it makes the moment where she just shows Madarame how his secret never really was one quite hilarious. Given how she didn’t even appear in the second TV series (though as far as I know that was just an unfortunate scheduling conflict, and she does make an appearance in one of the drama CDs), it almost feels like the series is making up for that by giving her more presence in the current manga.

As for the dirty look Keiko gives Hato, it’s yet another ambiguous moment in this chapter whose path will lead us who knows where. If we go by the harem view mentioned before, then this could be interpreted as Keiko exhibiting jealousy, but I think it’s something else. If I had to guess, I’d say that Keiko’s impatience towards Madarame dancing around and avoiding his own feelings for fear of confrontation is also showing itself with Hato and where he might stand with Madarame.

Even though she’s clearly not the focus, I do want to talk a bit about Ogiue’s part in this chapter. When Kohsaka grabs Madarame’s arms and tells him that they could’ve had a polygamous relationship with each other and Saki, I like how you can tell who is thinking what in that moment. For most of the guys, it’s just an awkward moment, but clearly Ogiue and Hato think more of it. Ohno seems much less affected, though it might make sense given her preference for significantly older, hairier, and balder guys. Keiko’s blushing on the following page is probably the most surprising, and another moment in this chapter open for interpretation. Could Keiko be a candidate for the Fujoshi Files after all?

The chapter ends with the reappearance of Katou, who we don’t know much about other than that she has Ohno-esque preferences, and that she’s been job-hunting as of late, but I wouldn’t mind seeing more of her at all. At this point Asada has more development than her, and she doesn’t even have a real face! I don’t have confidence we’ll see much of her, but one can always hope.

Genshiken 2 R2 Single Box Re-Release

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After 6 DVDs worth of Region-2 Genshiken 2 goodness, the official site back in August announced a December 2009 release of a single Genshiken 2 box containing all 12 episodes for the enjoyment of Japanese fans and those willing to spend lots of money on anime but didn’t do it the last time they released the DVDs.

The Region 2 DVD box will likely have more features than the American release, which has just begun, but fewer features than the original Japanese release, which came with Drama CDs and Pretty Menma stories and all sorts of crazy things that only I crazy fans would want. However, while I am not 100% sure of this, I am almost certain that the new box will be the best-looking of the bunch, and most likely designed to fit in with the previous box-set compilations. I previously posted an image of them some months ago, but here they are again.

Genshiken and Genshiken OVA boxes

I mean, I don’t think anyone can argue that these are the most stylish of the bunch, though I’d have to wonder who they’re gonna put on the Genshiken 2 box. Ohno is on the back cover of the OVA series, but maybe they’ll graduate her to the front for this one.