Jun Hanyunyuu: Impact Manga!!

6 Jul 2007 Category: Features, Japan, Manga

Jun Hanyunyuu: Impact Manga!!

Three punk homeless men and a woman run around haphazardly with a burning sense of mission for “Neighbourhood Universe Patrol.”
From “Wagaranna.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU//PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Welcome to the wild, wild world of Jun Hanyunyuu!! Jun Hanyunyuu is the original manga author of the film “Koi no Mon” (directed by Suzuki Matsuo) which was selected for the Venice International Film Festival in 2004. His works portray a pristine anarchy - a realistic world with a chaotic mixture of violence, eroticism and fresh humour - both merciless and intense. And the characters in his manga, while way beyond the imagination, somehow manage to present a cutting reflection of our contemporary society - the editor of a supernatural phenomena magazine, cyber-homeless men, a poverty-stricken manga artist and a cosplay girl, an Okinawan yakuza and a hitman, a household on the verge of family breakdown, a hardcore Gundam geek office worker, Confucius’ apprentice… His works have a cult following in the creative industries in Japan. To get to know the deep worlds of Jun Hanyunyuu, PingMag went to see him at a café in his home ground of Koenji, in west Tokyo.

Written by Noriko
Translated by Natsumi Yamane

Lonely Boku-chan is actually a police chief. From “Wagaranna”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

First of all, how did you originally come up with your unique worldviews?

I’ve always had this desire to draw, and apparently when I was a kid I used to spend all my time drawing on the blank space on the back of fliers and leaflets. I came across manga when I was in high school, and then I got into making 8mm films after that. When I had to decide which career to pursue – manga or film making – I wanted to do both drawing and story-making, and manga was the closest option that allowed me to do both of those things.


From right, Tey-san, Yomen and Hitoritabi from “Wagaranna”
©JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

So that’s why there are so many cinematic cuts and angles in your works?

I wasn’t a big manga fan at the time, so I didn’t really read the popular comic magazines like Shonen Jump that everybody else was reading. When I actually started writing manga myself, I realised that I had to do something unique in order to stand out. So instead of imitating ordinary manga, I started doing the layouts as if I was transferring the camera work I wanted to do onto paper, and it ended up like that.


From “Tsuwamono Daigekijo,” an anthology of his early works.
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Then who was your manga influence at the time?

I mimicked various people each time - or rather, it didn’t work out without mimicking. (laugh) As far as I can remember off hand, I used to go to school with manga by people like Shiriagari Kotobuki, Katsuhiro Otomo, Yoshiharu Tsuge in my school bag. I didn’t watch films very seriously, but I still took all the best bits from anime, special effect movies and horror films.

After that, you went to a vocational school in Tokyo in the hopes of becoming a professional manga artist, and 6 months later, you’d already won a manga prize in a computer magazine. You must have achieved a high standard of perfection at a very early stage.

That was another one of my wild ideas - instead of entering prizes hosted by major comic magazines, I went for the manga prize in a computer magazine on purpose, to make myself stand out, and that strategy just happened to work. To be honest, I think I was self-confident, and there was this feeling of wanting to be recognised.

The mastermind behind the supernatural phenomena is a weird and lovely elderly couple – from “Saburi-s.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

From “Saburi-s”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

What was your style like back then?

It hasn’t changed all that much. The drawing was strongly influenced by the early works of Yoshihiro Yamada, the kind of touch where you could clearly see the pressure of the dip pen on the page. Also, I thought influences from manga alone wouldn’t be as interesting, so I studied and copied a book of works by Egon Schiele in a notebook. I think my drawing style was established like that.

Were you able to get a steady flow of business after you won the prize?

Well, no – I happened to win that prize but it didn’t lead to anything immediately, so I went back and forth between my hometown in Nagano and Tokyo. I worked part-time for about a year and wrote mangas from time to time, and that brought me an offer, so there wasn’t any particular difficulty really.

I heard that you’ve been living along the Chuo Line from back then, but is that because many people from the drama, music and manga industries live in that area?

I vaguely knew about that, but the actual reason was because I was being looked after by Kentaro Takekuma. When we started our first weekly serial together, he lived in Mitaka, and we used to come up with the ideas chatting with the editor, so I decided to move to the Asagaya area which was nearby. I’ve been trapped on this line for 10 years now… (laugh) I think this area along Chuo Line is a comfortable position in between “not wanting to stray from under the huge umbrella of the industry” and this groundless confidence of “I will never stray.”


The original artwork for the ending of “Koi no Mon.” Place a tracing paper over this and… © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

paste the white cutout with the dialogues, then mark the instructions for printing.
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Paste the cut out dialogues to complete the manuscript. From “Koi no Mon.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

“Stroke me… it’s my last request.” Senko - a middle-aged woman - is actually a professional assassin. The unevenness of the solid black is clearly visible in the original manuscript. From “Oh-ru (blue).” © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

So, how do you actually draw manga these days?

Ever since I started “Awaya Family” 2 years ago, I do all of my manuscripts using a PC tablet, so everything is digital now.

It looks like an ordinary natural pen drawing to me…

Basically, it’s my perverse idea of trying to overcome the temptations of easy digital processing, and instead using it in such a way that actually there is no point in making it digital at all! (laugh) The process starts with an initial meeting with the editor, then I do the layouts of cuts and dialogue in data format and send the file off to be checked by the editorial team. Then I will add layers over the rough data and start drawing with pen and tablet. After that, I add screentones, and send the finished manuscript in Photoshop format. So the whole process is entirely digital and paperless.

Jun Hanyunyuu’s working space was surprisingly clean and tidy.

The cover of “Awaya Family,” Hanyunyu Jun’s first digital manuscript. This work was serialised from 2005 in Comic Beam. The Awaya Family is a family suffering from a series of misfortunes - unsuccessful illustrator father “Daisanji”, editor and martial arts fan mother “Noriko”, the eldest daughter, high schooler “Pony”, adolescent junior high school student “Awaya” and the beleaguered toddler “Gattai” - and the supporting characters add a nice touch too! © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

“I only have sex with guys who have no hope otherwise.” - the eldest daughter Pony provides a “volunteer love” service to geeky guys without any chance of getting a date.
From “Awaya Family.” © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Yutaka Zehi is a junkman who hits the charts after receiving the “volunteer love” service from Pony. From “Awaya Family.” © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

How do you come up with the storyline and the composition?

I set out the rough flow before the series starts – for example, in my work “Koi no Mon” (serialised in 2000) I had my mind set on giving it a happy ending however hard the process might be, then I decided on the ups and downs in each episode every month. In my case, I don’t have any personal attachment to my characters so I use them as slaves to the storyline. (laugh)

The main character of “Koi no Mon” is poverty-stricken Mon Aoki, who creates manga with neatly aligned pebbles. © JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Mon is shocked to find out that the cost of Koino’s self-published manga for Comiket is 150,000 yen each issue. But he is also forced to admit the income gap between him and Koino, when she tells him that her net income from each Comiket is 1,000,000 yen. “I never knew that you could make so much money at Comiket…” From “Koi no Mon.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

Are each character’s settings and backgrounds decided with the editor too?

Most of the time it’s all fixed as we chat. For “Koi no Mon,” I started just by wondering how two people with entirely different hobbies and interests would get on with each other under the same roof. That was around the time when “Otaku” were beginning to be recognised socially, but I couldn’t identify with their habits at all - what kind of a love life could these guys possibly have? So basically, I made up a story around something that interested me.


Otaku people are portrayed realistically in this deep love story between the office worker Koino, who loves Cosplay and sells her own manga at Comiket as a hobby, and an art manga creator, Mon.
From “Koi no Mon.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

From “Koi no Mon.”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

It feels to me as though you take a bird’s-eye view of things – I mean, you depict other societies and industries with a cool and collected observer’s eye. How do you feel about that?

Well, maybe all I can do is be an observer – when you are making a story, it’s important to put it down once and look at it calmly, and then recompile it before showing it to other people. I think it’s impossible not to see it from a detached perspective.


From ”Ohru (Blue).”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

So that’s how you manage to reflect a chaotic reality in your works instead of the stereotypical subjects, with both an extreme insanity and an ordinariness existing simultaneously.

I make a special point of not taking either side. Because I can’t be at the centre of the story, I envy people who do strange things - I’m curious to know what they are thinking, and because I can’t be bubbly myself, I want to draw people who are – there might be a kind of metamorphosis desire at the root of my fascination for story-making.

“I want to shoot!”"I want to shoot!”
A manga creator who has had a major hit in the past but has since lost his passion for manga thrusts himself into a Japanese gang’s bloody vendetta, and becomes fascinated by the act of “shooting people.” He soon starts to write a manga based on the real-life scenario and the story accelerates towards a fierce climax…. From “Ohru (Blue).”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

A picaresque masterpiece of “violence,” “manga” and “love” – it’s a must-read story full of tension and sensation - exclusively for adults! From “Ohru (Blue).”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/PUBLISHED BY ENTERBRAIN,INC.

You’ve received a lot of attention since your “Koi no Mon” was selected as a jury recommended work by Japan Media Arts Festival in 2001, and a film adaptation of the same work was made by Suzuki Matsuo (sponsored by Theatre Company “Otona Keikaku”) but how do you feel about that?

When the talk of the film adaptation came up, I’d already started the next work called “Ohru (Blue)” so it didn’t actually feel like any of my business at the time. I felt the kind of pride you’d feel on hearing that your married daughter got commended for helping a drowning child near her new home. (laugh) I met Mr. Matsuo for the first time before the film was shot, and I felt kinda apologetic to see so many people make such a fuss over my little work. (laugh)

What did you think about the live-action version of “Koi no Mon”?

Well, film and manga are totally different media to start off with, and I wanted it to be remade according to the director’s taste so that it would reflect the maker’s perspective 100%. In that sense, I’m glad that it was Mr. Matsuo who made the film. Then you can say “here is this one, but you can go for that one if you like.”

Incidentally, the current serial “Roukouniari - Gankai Denki” (serialised in Digicomi Shincho ‘com2′) is based on a story by Kenichi Sakemi, but how on earth did you come to start writing this piece of work?

The negotiation took several years and it finally got on track this year. When I was selecting the original story from the novels published by SHINCHOSHA, I thought if I was going to do it at all, why not choose something I’d never done before. So I went for ancient China - I wasn’t at all interested in ancient China until then. (laugh) The original novel is a historical epic, but I focused on a section like a love story, so it’d be nice if I can present my own style of ancient Chinese drama to the readers.


The ultimate Gundam fan starts going to work in Gundam costume…. From “I’m the Real GUNDAM”
© JUN HANYUNYUU/Kadokawa/ST,SR

“I’m the Real GUNDAM” (serialised in “Gundam A” from Kadokawa Shoten features an office worker who goes to work in a Gundam costume, right?

Gundam A is a specialised magazine for hardcore Gundam fans, but the purpose of the work is to add something alien to that magazine. (laugh) The editors seem pretty fond it, but many of the readers seem to think “What the hell!?”

I think Jun Hanyunyuu fans all look forward to seeing which subject you are going to tackle next, and how you go about it - they are often so moved that your works never fall short of their expectations.

I want to keep doing my best so that the fans continue feeing that way.


The interview took place at the typically Koenji café, “Nanatsumori.”

Jun Hanyunyuu , who kindly drew a portrait for us at the end of the interview.

Thank you so much for your valuable time today. We’ll keep our eyes open for more of your work!

67 Comments

  1. Looks really crazy. But cool.

    Posted by: Marcel on July 6th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

  2. Awesme work :) , love the style

    Posted by: Julio on July 6th, 2007 at 8:41 pm

  3. Nice….reminds me of Berserk a bit…
    http://www.younganimal.com/berserk/

    Posted by: SHANTELL MARTIN on July 6th, 2007 at 8:47 pm

  4. Like this kind of freeky work. Neil Gaiman in asain style and with japanese obsessions… good !

    I knw, I’m mad

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  6. [...] text,images source: pingmag [...]

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  7. PingMag Interviews Jun Hanyunyuu…

    From PingMag posts an interview with the “wild” mangaka Jun Hanyunyuu, whose work Koi no Mon (directed by Suzuki Matsuo)was selected for the 2004 Venice International Film Festival. In the interview Jun Hanyunyuu talks about his past, his experience …

    Posted by: ComiPress on July 7th, 2007 at 3:16 pm

  8. Thanks for another great interview!

    Posted by: vaneea on July 7th, 2007 at 8:12 pm

  9. i luv japanese manga.:) from bangkok and it’s good article

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  10. Hi

    I can’t be bothered with anything these days, but shrug. I just don’t have anything to say recently.

    Bye

    Posted by: tihopilik on July 9th, 2007 at 12:05 am

  11. I’m loving manga. Its always so inspiring!
    Gambatte, Jun Hanyunyuu.
    Wish to see more interviews related to manga. ;-)

    Posted by: nico on July 9th, 2007 at 3:50 am

  12. great interview. just started Koi no Mon and it makes just about any manga I’ve read before seem terminally drab

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