Sunday November 18, 2007
Rolling with the Punch
By SAORI KAN
The septuagenarian, whose story of a famous thief continues to steal the limelight, was among the first manga artists to use computers to create their artwork. He remains passionately committed to the digital cause.
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Lupin IIIis arguably one of manga’s most well-known bandits. |
This year marks the 40th anniversary of the original manga series created by Monkey Punch. A free exhibition is being held in Saitama, Saitama Prefecture, featuring 50 pen-and-ink drawings and digital images created by the mangaka.
“It doesn’t feel like I’ve been doing this for 40 years,” the 70-year-old Monkey Punch tells The Daily Yomiuri at his studio in Sakura, Chiba Prefecture. “These days, 70 to 80% of my work is done digitally. The only work I do in pen nowadays are sketches I put next to my autograph,” he jokes.
Upon entering the Monkey Punch Gengaten: Pen to Digital exhibition at the Saitama Municipal Manga Kaikan centre, you will be met by a pair of ink paintings, measuring 187cm tall and 99cm wide. Pictured on the two images are Lupin and Inspector Zenigata of the International Criminal Police Organisation, who has made it his life’s work to track down and capture the elusive burglar. In his image, Lupin is striding with a carefree smile on his face. But Zenigata is running, probably pursuing the bandit and shouting “Waaait! Lupin!!” – as he so often does in the series, which has been adapted for the big and small screens.
“I took my inspiration for the relationship from Tom and Jerry. The mouse, Lupin, is cleverer than Zenigata, who is left gnashing his teeth after failing to get his man yet again,” the creator says. “But Zenigata is my favourite character (in the series) because he’s a cop who works just as a cog in the wheel, unlike Lupin and his cohorts, who are all outlaws. That makes him a real challenge for me.”
The first Lupin III manga appeared in the debut issue of Weekly Manga Action, Japan’s first comic magazine targeting young men, which was inaugurated in 1967. The manga series soon became popular and was made into an animated TV show in 1971, followed by two more series in the 1970s and 1980s. It spawned other franchises, including annual TV specials, feature films, novels, a live-action movie, musical and video games.
Monkey Punch was among the pioneering manga artists who used computers to create their artwork digitally.
The exhibition includes 10 digital images of Lupin and his gang: Daisuke Jigen; Goemon Ishikawa, a master swordsman and descendant of the legendary bandit; and the voluptuous femme fatale, Fujiko Mine.
The original ink drawings include the first chapter of the original manga series and drawings made for the weekly magazine’s cover.
“It’ll be fun for viewers to compare the digital images and pen-and-ink drawings, while comparing the style difference between the older and newer works,” says Yumiko Shimada, curator of the manga centre.
Monkey Punch says he considers the manga and anime series completely different works. The differences are marked, as the manga Lupin casually kills his foes, something the anime Lupin doesn’t do.
“But I myself am a fan of the anime and usually look forward to the newest TV specials,” the mangaka says with a smile. “I’m invited to the producers’ meetings, but I usually don’t make any special requests about the story setting or whatever.”
However, this year’s 40th anniversary special, which aired in July on Japan’s NTV network, was an exception. “I wanted my hometown, Hamanakacho in eastern Hokkaido, to be featured in the anime, as it’s suffering from depopulation,” he says.
Hamanakacho is a town with a population of only 7,000. The population was about 14,000 in 1937 when Punch was born.
When he was a child, he loved drawing cartoons by copying the popular character Norakuro, a black-and-white dog.
After graduating from high school, he moved to Tokyo and entered an electronics vocational school, while working a part-time job and creating stories for a fanzine, which he and his friends published, and also for a publisher that specialised in rental books and magazines.
His work was discovered by an editor of Futabasha, the company behind Weekly Manga Action, for whom he created the Lupin III series, loosely based on the Arsene Lupin novel series and 007 movies. The artist’s strange pseudonym, he explains, was given to him by his editor, who compared his characters’ faces to that of a monkey.
The Lupin III manga series still continues, but Monkey Punch remains only involved as a supervisor.
“Many contemporary comic magazines are weekly. So if I had a series in the magazines, I’d have no time to do what I want – researching possible manga digitalisation projects, for example,” he says. “And quite frankly, I want Lupin III to be a series that is written by a variety of young mangaka, just like the Spider-Man series has worked as a stepping stone for cartoonists in the United States.”
Not just Spidey’s web
Monkey Punch began using computers in his work nearly two decades ago.
“Digital technology allows me to look closely at the details (of the images) and easily change minor things several times. This means, though, that it’s sometimes hard to give up the details and complete (the images).”
Co-operating with famous mangaka, including Machiko Satonaka and Tetsuya Chiba, Monkey Punch established the Tokyo-based Digital Manga Association five years ago to explore and develop manga content for the Internet.
“I thought it would be a waste not to utilise the Internet, since it allows us to directly communicate with people around the world,” the creator says.
“Japan’s manga culture is drawing international attention, but we don’t even have an archive containing information about all the manga published here,” he says. “I want to find a way to set up such an archive, getting co-operation from other mangaka and relevant experts.”
Monkey Punch is clearly curious about acquiring new knowledge. In 2003 and 2004, he studied media science at the graduate school of Tokyo University of Technology. The graduate student, who was in his late 60s at the time, commuted three hours twice a week to the campus in Hachioji, western Tokyo, from his home in Sakura.
“When I was studying digital technology, however, I was faced with a fundamental conundrum: ‘What is manga in the first place?;’” he says. “Analysing conventional printed forms, I was impressed by the incredible functionality of cartoon strips and dialogue balloons, for example, as they perfectly work to describe the world in a limited space. Even the simple action of turning pages is exciting for readers, making them wonder what will happen next.
“We want to develop a groundbreaking system that allows a more attractive online presentation of manga, not just scanned copies of the paper hard copy.”
He also teaches aspiring cartoonists at Otemae University in Hyogo Prefecture, where he lectures twice a month.
His lecture at the Saitama manga centre in late October was attended by about 50 fans chosen from more than 150 applicants.
Asked by a young man for advice on how to become a successful mangaka, Monkey Punch replied – as he usually does at the university – “There are three keys: The story should be easy to understand, interesting and brand new. That may sound easy, but it’s actually very difficult to have these three aspects to a story,” he said.
And he added: “I love manga, so I just want to read interesting stories.” – The Daily Yomiuri / Asia News Network
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