Q- To sum up, Rurouni Kenshin was your first manga, and at first, you often said that you preferred Shojo, but during the Kyoto Arc, you discovered how interesting drawing Shonen was. Which kind of manga will you choose to draw next?

W- I will repeat myself, but since I discovered the joys of drawing Shonen, I just want to draw more. As Kenshin was the kind of character who is strong from the start, in my next manga, I want to picture a hero who will become stronger and wiser as the time goes by. For that, he will have, of course, to win battles, but it will be close calls.

Q- Does that mean that the hero of your next manga will be a young boy?

W- Everything is not decided yet, but yes it will be a young boy of about thirteen or fourteen years old. I will also create another type of character, which I couldn’t picture in Rurouni Kenshin: the strong and powerful heroine.

Q- Doesn’t Kaoru and Misao belong in that category?

W- More or less. I would want to picture someone even stronger, at an equal stand with the hero… I would also like to create dumb characters, as Banjin or Cho, who are pleasures to draw. This time, I would want to have them as main characters. (laughs) In Rurouni Kenshin, the characters were a little too deep, they had internal conflicts, a side of their personality they were hiding and that they didn’t want to show to others, etc. This time, I would prefer characters who are easy to understand and who, without all of those complex character traits, would be better. (laughs).

Q- In which era would this story take place? In modern days?

W- Yes, I’ll stop drawing historical mangas for now. If one day, I want to draw historical mangas again, I will do it, but until then, I only wish to draw stories that happen in today’s world.

Q- You already draw one, "Meteor Strike", no?

W- Yes. There’s that one. (laughs). When I drew it, I was taking two weeks off Rurouni Kenshin and the planning was really tight. There are many things in that manga that I would have like to change, and when I read it back, I can see that it was a very moronic story, but it’s not that bad. (laughs). At least, they didn’t let me write a story where Kenshin was hit by a meteor. (laughs).

Q- The episode shown at the end of the Kenshin Kaden vol. 2, is officially ending the series, but do you have any regrets, or something you would have want to draw, but couldn’t?

W- In fact, whoever reads the end of the Kyoto Arc understands that Soujiro leaves for Hokkaido. At the time, I wanted to draw another arc later on, located in that area, and where Soujiro would have been on the Kenshingumi’s side.

Q- Are you talking about the Hokkaido Arc that so many people wanted to read? [1]

W- Yes. I also wanted to introduce a new character during that arc: Shinpachi Nagakura, the Shinsengumi second division’s captain, in accordance with the possibilities. But I thought about it a lot, and I preferred ending the series with the Revenge Arc, so the Hokkaido Arc never saw the day.

Q- Was the Hokkaido Arc a darker or a more hopeful arc?

W- It was a happier arc. I had envisioned it as a kind of Western. The government’s army would have been the cavalry, Hokkaido’s new inhabitants and the samourai-peasents [2] would have been the settlers, people without a precise goal and who would have wander until then would have been the outlaws and, finally, the natives would have been the Indians… And the Kenshingumi would arrive in the middle of all of that.

Q- It seems to be very different from what we saw so far in the rest of the manga, no?

W- Well… we can’t always draw the same kind of things. (laughs). Also, with the end of the Revenge Arc, the main theme of Rurouni Kenshin had come to an end: what marked Kenshin’s character the most, his culpability, his search for an answer, for a way of explaining the crimes he committed. That’s why the following arc should have been completely different, if not, it wouldn’t have made sense. That’s why I had imagined a sort of western. (laughs). It would be very funny to surprise the readers with a wagon full of American’s settlers appearing right in the middle of all of that. (laughs).

Q- Aside from Soujiro, which other characters did you wanted to re-use for this Arc?

W- I would have like to re-use Fuji. It could have been interesting to make him intervene precisely when Kenshin was in danger. I thought that Fuji looked very cool when he was digging the fields in Hokkaido. Anji is also imprisoned in Hokkaido, so I would have made him reappear. As he is the only character who haven’t been spiritually "salved", it bothered me, and I finally wanted to offer him a second chance in life.

Q- You already had a clear idea of the plot, don’t you think that many readers would want to read that arc now that you’re telling us more about it?

W- Hum… Yes, but no. I prefer using the ideas I got for that arc in my next manga.

Q- Really. (laughs). Then, let me ask you when are you going to start working on that new manga? [3]

W- I’m only working on the main lines of the plot right now, so I really don’t know. I wish to start really working on it by the middle of next year.

Q- Will it be very different, in style and spirit, from Rurouni Kenshin?

W- Yes, I would like to create an as interesting story, but from a different perspective. That said, I’m still the same author, hence I think that the basis of both stories will be very similar. Of course, I will use what I learned from Rurouni Kenshin.

Q- Rurouni Kenshin being your first series, you must have learn a lot?

W- Enormously. There were some passages where I lost focus and there are a lot of hiccups, but aside of that, it’s true that I learned a lot while working on that manga. It brought me a lot, I think.

Q- Which was the most important thing to you during those five years?

W- My readers’ support. Drawing manga is my job, yes, but being able to draw what I really want, and to realise that the public loves it, is very satisfying. Every time a reader told me that he liked this or that in my manga, it gave me a boost of energy. The readers are everything to an author.

Q- Do you have something to say to the readers who have follow your work until now?

W- Thanks, thanks to all, thanks a lot. That’s mostly what I want to say. If they also want to read my next manga, I will be very happy. I will do my best, so see you!

Q- I would like to thank you for the time you took for this very long interview.

NOTES

[1] There had been a short report in Shonen Jump about the Hokkaido Arc, which finally never saw the day, as the series ended with the Revenge Arc. Many Shinengumi fans were disappointed by this decision, along with Soujiro fans.

[3] The Kenshin Kaden vol. 2 has been published at the end of 1999 in Japan, so this interview also took place by the end of that year. The manga which they are talking about hence is "Gun Blaze West", which has been published in Shonen Jump but suddenly stopped after only three volumes. Since then, Watsuki hasn’t draw anything, but he is now about to do it.