I even dressed up as Shana to interview her. But unfortunately, she had a “No-Photo” policy so I couldn’t get a picture with her =(
Continue reading for the interview…
Q: You have mentioned in other interviews that being a high school girl is probably the best time in a girl's life. Can you talk more about that?
Yeah, I agree that high school which is 16, 17 18 years old is one of the best times I had. It's very fun and there's so much things to do. Whenever I draw characters with school uniform, I really enjoy it and I think its a fun thing to do. It makes me feel happy.
Q: Would that influence her art? Like maybe the character doesn't necessarily have to wear school uniform but her character design will still incorporate some sort of sailor fuku design.
Even though I do enjoy drawing school uniform but usually I will follow what the client prefers me to draw. Of course if the story doesn't have any school theme then I wouldn’t draw them. But if it's something related to school then I'll immediately draw something related to school uniforms haha.
Q: You are famous for your Shana and Suzumiya Haruhi and it just happens that both the protagonist are girls. What do you have to say about drawing the boy characters ?
I haven’t had much chance to draw main character that are boys. Whenever the girl is the lead, I'll make sure the boys are .. kinda not too strong in character almost ?
Like Kyon in “The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi” , he doesn't have a strong impact. He’s not a character that you will have a strong impression of unlike Haruhi.
Currently I’m working on a game where the main character is actually a guy. So I’m trying to design more characteristic and special for this character. It's something a little different.
Q: I was wondering , were you involved in the anime production of either “Shakugan no Shana” or “The Melancholy of Suzumiya Haruhi” ?
During the production of the anime I don’t really have any involvement. But whenever there is an event, I will usually be with the Seiyuus (Voice Actors).
Q: What exactly is it like to be an illustrator in Japan ?
Well personally, the job that I do is very lonely at times because I have to spend a lot of time drawing all alone by myself.
Q: So is there anything I would do to relieve that or to get inspiration ? Like keep the TV on or something like that ?
Sometimes sound or music kind of disturbs me and distracts me from doing my job so there are times where I don't play any music at all. But sometimes the music will help lift one’s the mood up and so I keep it on. It really just depends on my mood, sometimes I will have music sometimes I don't.
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In the course of the interview, many other interesting questions were asked by the other media Representatives. One most interesting one was “Do you have any Seiyuu Friends?” and Itou sensei’s reply was guess who, Kyon’s Seiyuu Tomokazu Sugita XD. Just a random fact I thought I’d share with you guys xD
Itou Sensei herself was a surprisingly pretty and expectedly reserved lady. She really didn’t say more than she needed to xD Really wishing I could have her photo to show you guys! She was patient with all the questions and highlighted her disappointment of not being able to see our iconic Merlion (it was under renovations xD) lols. Since I am such a big fan of Shana, I was understandably excited and even went to the extend of cosplaying as Shana just to interview her.
But it ended up being one of my most awkward and uncomfortable interviews yet. Mostly because I was late, was an awkward fan and… was in a jarring red wig amidst a bunch of serious interviewers =_=. I didn’t get to ask a lot of the more sensational questions I planned because I ended up feeling shy/bad/guilty… sorry if the questions asked were well, boring.
I want to extend my sincere gratitude and thanks to KY for graciously sharing the audio recording of this interview with me. If you follow me on TCC’s FB Page, you might know of how I lost my own audio recording of the interview. So I was definitely counting my blessings when I know there were other people in the same interview with me and even more thankful when KY was so ready to share his interview recordings with me. #faithinhumanityrestored !