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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.

Kio Shimoku’s First Audio Interview Is with a Virtual Youtuber!

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Kio Shimoku has historically been a very private person, not even revealing his face until 2018. Shockingly, the Genshiken author had his very first audio interview, and it was by a Virtual Youtuber to boot! Luis Cammy is apparently a big fan of Kio’s work, and talked with him for a whopping 80+ minutes.

Translating the whole thing would be a whole endeavor in itself, but you’ll find all the notes I’ve taken from the interview. There’s a lot of it that’s all-new information and insight into Kio’s creative history.

Note that Kio has a remarkably deep voice. Personally, he reminds me a bit of Kugayama from Genshiken.

Also, as a final disclaimer, it’s possible I misunderstood some of the things spoken about. If anyone has corrections, feel free to leave comments!

Introduction and Miscellaneous

Luis has been a fan of his work since Gonensei (“The Fifth Year”), an early Kio manga and dark sequel to his prior work, Yonensei (“The Fourth Year”).

As part of their collaboration, Luis sang a cover of the Kujibiki Unbalance opening, and Kio provided drawings of Luis cosplaying as Ritsuko Kübel Kettenkrad for a music video. The video

It’s meant to resemble late 1990s to early 2000s galge/dating sim intros. Luis looks like Saki from Genshiken/Ritsuko already, so it was a challenge to differentiate her.

Kio learned about VTubers from manga author gatherings. He doesn’t watch YouTubers much, let alone VTubers.

When asked if he knew how popular his work was at the time, Kio said he didn’t really look at comments online, but felt he rode the wave of the era.

The very beginning of Genshiken was Kio wanting to draw otaku as normal people. He want to madk what he himself wanted to read.

Luis mentions that otaku and their status have changed drastically since the days of Genshiken (when otaku were picked on and persecuted), like how there are light otaku now. Kio says his daughter is in middle school right now, and to her, she doesn’t get the whole otaku-as-negative thing. A group of popular kids in her class have Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba merch. Kio responds, “Times have changed, huh?”

Luis talks about how even regular folks say they like her, and it’s like the wall between normies and otaku isn’t there. Madarame has become a popular representative of otaku (to the extent that he’s Kio’s visual stand-in for this interview).

Genshiken

Luis mentions how fans by Nidaime love Madarame, and that he’s like a dating sim protagonist in Genshiken Second Generation/Nidaime.

Kio talks about how, in the very earliest planning stages, the first idea he sent to editorial was about the relationship between Madarame, Kousaka, and Saki. The love triangle was inspired by Ping-Pong Club, the nose-hair chapter in particular. That scene was thought up very early on, back when Genshiken was a mere chick. In a sense, Madarame and his romantic relationships were a part of Genshiken from the start.

Luis talks about her mahjong teacher, Saito Go (a professional player and mahjong VTuber), likes Genshiken. He especially remembers that scene with Madarame and Saki eating sushi together, and then not talking afterward on the train ride home.

Luis points out that Kio likes to use silent panels, which Kio agrees with. However, he thinks overdoing it with those types of panels isn’t good either. The nose-hair chapter ends in silence too. Luis says a lot of information can be conveyed in such panels. Kio says it can convey a sense of realism.

Luis points out that the recording was the day of Saki’s birthday!

When creating character profiles for the compiled manga volumes, Kio had to come up with birthdays. He actually used Gundam Horoscopes to think them up. [This has been mentioned in other sources before, like the Japan-only Genshiken Official Data Book.] Actually, it was sort of like a backwards horoscope, in that he picked a mobile suit that would fit Saki well, and decided the birthday based on that. Sasahara is a Ball.

Personal Questions and Family Life

Kio is into Gunpla. He got into it when he was a 6 thanks to his bigger brother. Plamo-Kyoshiro (the 1980s precursor to Gundam Build Fighters) was his “bible.” He would categorize himself as a plastic model otaku above all else. He still wants to continue it as a hobby, but he’s busy. In Plamo-Kyoshiro, the way they used cardboard boxes in the manga really sparked his imagination as a kid.

Luis asks if Kio’s daughter ever says, “Why is our home filling up with more [otaku] stuff?” Kio says that his workplace is different from his home, so it’s his workplace that gets filled up instead. Doesn’t think his daughter is an otaku, but can’t say for sure. Luis jokes about Kio’s daughter showing up on the live recording and telling him not to say so much. Kio mentions that she doesn’t know about this, so Luis responds that she could come in saying, “It sounds like you’re doing a broadcast with someone from Nijisanji.” Kio comments that she might actually know what VTubers are.

Kio’s daughter has always walked in while he’s drawing manga, so she’s been reading manga for a long time. Kio still reads current manga. Luis says that manga has become like a “communication tool” these days, like, “What? Do you know this title?” as a conversation starter.

Genshiken More In-Depth

Luis describes the first Genshiken as being about ancient otaku. She asks Kio, if there was a Genshiken Third Generation, would it have VTubers and stuff in it? What kinds of characters and what sort of content would it include?

Kio concurs that they’re ancient otaku. His thinking was, “If I try to draw something totally new, it’ll quickly date itself. But if I make them feel older, than it’ll age better.” He doesn’t consider himself to be on the cutting edge. Genshiken came from whatt he personally wanted to draw. As it continued, it progressed into fujoshi stuff.

As for VTubers, once they become old, maybe then they’d show up in Genshiken. Kio says that plenty of current manga have VTubers in them already.

Luis asks if Kio is happy to have ended Second Generation when he did, and Kio says yes. “It felt like, ‘That’s about where it should stop.’” He explains how the sequel started out as a one-shot, but he’s not good at doing extra stories and the like, so he kept on working on it. Kodansha editorial (the publisher of Genshiken) said he should do enough to fill one volume. It was originally supposed to be a short serialization. 

Kio began with the thought of “How would Ogiue and the others continue the club?” and of course, it would end up with a bunch of fujoshi. But would it be all girls? What about guys? Hence, Hato.

Kio really went back and forth about whether or not to include a character like Hato. When he was drawing the manuscript, he kept having the feeling of “Is this really okay?” Coming up with the idea of Hato purposely using a more feminine voice is when he finally thought he could make it work. Fujoshi and otoko no ko (boys who dress convincingly as girls) are the main aspects of Second Generation. Kio didn’t want to put Hato through so much hardship, but as the story progressed, he felt that’s what should happen—though he did worry over it. 

The original Genshiken was supposed to be in real time, and things moved quickly. But it stopped being that way during the Ogiue story at Karuizawa. At the time, Ogiue was a “problem child” when it came to drawing the manga, as he didn’t know if he could resolve her backstory.  It’d be difficult to do that and still maintain the “real-time” thing, and he would’ve selfishly wanted to end the series in the Spring if it had stuck to being in real time. But it took multiple months to get through the Ogiue story. 

The series was supposed to end at Volume 8, but then there were plans for the second special official doujinshi [the first one was included with Volume 6]. Because of that, they decided to continue the series up to Volume 9. The original Genshiken features Ogiue’s turmoil, and Second Generation features Hato’s turmoil.

Luis comments how there are the Ogiue fans, and then there are Hato fans. Kio responds, “The Ogiue fans really are somethingl…” and then trails off. [Ogiue Maniax note: I feel attacked.] 

Spotted Flower

There are things that were hard to put into Genshiken, like sexual stuff. That’s where Spotted Flower comes from. From here, the two jokingly pussyfoot around Spotted Flower’s similarities to Genshiken.

Luis talks about how Spotted Flower is a different world (tongue-in-cheek), but it has kind of a crossover feel. Kio responds that they’re ostensibly different characters. Luis replies that the series is like a “what-if” universe (if-sekai in Japanese).

Kio says it’s not supposed to be them, but through it, he can do what he couldn’t in Genshiken.

Luis says, “What-If Madarame has a ‘Why youuuu!’ feeling.” Kio laments the husband as well.

Spotted Flower was supposed to be just a few short pages for Rakuen: Le Paradis magazine. The resemblance to other characters was originally not planned, but is actually something he noticed after the fact. He didn’t explain the meaning of the title to them when he submitted it [madara means “spot” and saki means “bloom”], so they probably didn’t realize at first. So he figured, “Why not keep going?” and it developed along the way.

“And now there are four volumes,” says Luis..

Kio’s feelings: “It’s not a book that comes out often, but if it interests you, I’m grateful.”

It was one thing when it was just the husband and wife, but then he added the Hato-like character, and the Kousaka-like character, and so on. He still can’t really say for sure that it’s them.

Hashikko Ensemble and Kio’s Overall Career

Luis finds the Hashikko Ensemble main character Akira cute. Kio says that he began with the idea that Akira would have that gap between his very deep voice and his shy personality.

Volume 5 of Hashikko Ensemble should be coming in September. 

Kio says he’s been in the manga business for 25 years. Luis thinks all his works are great, in terms of information provided, emotion, and atmosphere all being wrapped up in them. “It’s no small stuff.” To Kio, he sees all the things she mentioned as his shortcomings Luis comments that she enjoys seeing Kio reflect on his work.

Kio is the type to regret not saying this or doing that. Luis remarks that this is a live broadcast—is Kio okay?

Kio doesn’t recognize his own voice when recording. Luis said she never thought of her voice as anything special but the fans would say it’s cute. Luis compares Akira’s voice to Kio’s. Kio never had any experience with singing or choruses, but figured, why not give Akira a deep voice like himself?

He thinks people who can come up with characters purely from imagination are amazing.

Hashikko Ensemble a story of the passion of youth, but Kio didn’t originally plan it that way. Like Genshiken, he wanted the story to be something ridiculous and fun, and landed on “chorus club high schoolers.”

Luis loves stories about the passion of youth (seishun), like Yowamushi Pedal and Big Windup. Kio replies that he’s never drawn manga in that vein—like Chihayafuru—but thought, “If I put all I had into it, could I draw one?” The characters in Genshiken are all pretty mellow. He wasn’t that good at drawing the kind of youthfulness that appears in Hashikko Ensemble, at first.

Luis makes the argument that the original Genshiken is a “passion of youth” story, because it’about figuring out what club to join and what to do? Like, Kugayama’s waffling on whether or not to draw, or Ogiue’s decision to go, “I guess I’m gonna draw.” 

The kinds of “passion of youth” stories Kio enjoys are a little strange—not so much “hot-blooded stuff.” Luis describes Madarame as a hot-blooded otaku. As for being a passion of youth story, what about that story with Saki mentioning Madarame looks good in his new glasses?

Originally, Genshiken was supposed to be a club that doesn’t put anything out. One of the things that made Ogiue tricky is that she wanted to draw herself, so Kio had no choice but to make a story about her trying to get into Comic Festival [the Genshiken in-universe equivalent of Comic Market].

Doujinshi???

Luis says Genshiken is what made her want to attend Comic Market as part of a circle. She asks Kio if he ever participated as an artist. Kio says yes!

Kio released a doujinshi at Comic Market in 2003 (Luis points out that 2004 was the year of the first Genshiken anime, which Kio totally forgot about).

Kio did not use the name “Kio Shimoku” for Comic Market. He sold 200 books, which impresses Luis. For reference, Luis says that 100 is considered a lot, and she herself sold 50 copies of her own doujinshi at a Comitia [a major doujin event primarily dedicated to original, non-fan works].

The doujinshi was indeed pornographic, and an original work. It bears resemblance to Kujibiki Unbalance and Genshiken.

Luis talks about how big sister loves Kujibiki Unbalance, to the extent that she put out a pornographic doujinshi starring Ritsuko. Luis helped her a lot with it, including stapling it together. 

“Putting out a Kujibiki Unbalance-esque doujinshi yourself is like actually being in Genshiken,” says Luis.

Kio also participated at Comic Market a second time—in 2010. It was a doujinshi based on a “certain space opera that uses Episodes,” flipping around the genders of the character roles involved. The inspiration was that with some wordplay, the title resembled the phrase “Sister Wars.” He drew what was supposed to just be a manuscript based on Episode 1, but it ended up being 350 pages. Kio wanted to draw up to six.

“Please complete it!” Luis says.

“But I wouldn’t be able to sell it!” Kio replies.

[Ogiue Maniax note: One of Ogiue’s characteristics is prolific output, just like Kio here.]

Luis asks if there’s anything he’s watched lately, old anime or new anime. Kio doesn’t have anything, and Luis says his free time to just sit down and watch without moving must have decreased. Kio agrees.

Kio wants to absorb more shows, but just doesn’t have the time.

Questions from Kio for Nijisanji

As future reference for manga, Kio asks if VTubers wear sensors to track movement. Luis responds that it uses 3D tracking. She quickly “corrects” that the animated figure you see is the real her.

Luis says that Kio’s participation in Comic Market makes his manga feel more real.

The two talk more about the Kujibiki Unbalance music video they collaborated on. Kio says it’s like a doujin-style fan work. Luis talks about how she has Genshiken and Kujibiki Unbalance merch. Luis has the Kujibiki Unbalance Ritsuko school swimsuit clear file drawn by the light novel artist, Yagumo Kengou. Kio mentions that the image was a request from him [Ogiue Maniax note: Not 100% sure about this last sentence].

Kio mentions that he gets some harsh comments, but others will say “That’s the kind of author he was all along!” But he doesn’t want to remember himself from the Gonensei era.

What an Interview!

There’s a lot to unpack in this interview. I hope to follow up with an analysis.

Also, I can’t believe there’s a Virtual Youtuber who’s into Genshiken, Kio Shimoku, and mahjong! It’s like someone designed a VTuber especially for me.

I guess the Ogiue Maniax VTuber pantheon is now Sugomori Tenkomori and Luis Cammy.