#girl whos drawn and created male charas all her life drawing a girl.... almost died!!!

[cephalotyrant]

I wanted to draw Vinny as a girl to show that she would somehow have shorter hair than the regular Vinny, but she got colored at some point

[pekorosu]

a summary of the banana fish bits from the yoshida akimi + gackt interview in this malice mizer book (1998). i don’t think there’s a complete english t/l out there yet (please correct if i’m wrong) but there is a chinese one, so do check it out if you’re interested (thanks @vashak for the link!)

- Gackt once claimed to have read the series more than a hundred times and that he would love to meet the author. His wish finally came true and the meet-up took place at Yoshida’s home.

- Why was Gackt drawn to the series at first? Because of the art, especially the eyes.

- He has the tendency to go into different character POVs as he’s reading a story. For BF, he started out with Ash’s POV, then Eiji’s, and so on. He did it even for characters who die almost immediately, so once that happened he would go back to the beginning and start reading again from a different POV, repeating it until he’s done with all the charas.

- Yoshida says that she’s interested in how male readers view the story, because after all, it is a woman’s fantasy. She wonders if it’s hard for them to get into the story. Gackt says that he got really into it though. Yoshida concedes that there are men out there who like the series, but it is still a shoujo manga and the magazine it’s published in is also for girls, so she has never once thought about a male audience as she was drawing it. That’s why she’s curious about how it’s being read by them.

- Someone told Gackt about the manga, which is how he found out about it. He really liked the art style and the convos, and from then on, it felt like he got sucked into her world and couldn’t get out.

- For some reason, he also thinks that their collarbones are nice…? He talks about how the characters wear T-shirts and how the collarbones would just casually peek out and he thinks it’s nice. Yoshida’s like, huh, that’s a first. Lol. She also mentions that she’s not really the type to be particularly fussy about her art.

- Gackt asks what inspired her to want to draw BF. Yoshida says that during her college years, her generation was exposed to and was heavily influenced by drug culture, so everyone around her including herself was quite knowledgeable about the topic. And as she was reading all sorts of books on it, she came across something that mentioned that the CIA planned to use drugs for mind control and that apparently the Soviet Union had something similar in mind as well. She thought that was interesting. She also talks about how there are many weapons of war in this world, the main three being: nuclear weapons, food supply and oil... with drugs being said to be the fourth. Thinking about it now, that’s probably where the idea for the story was conceived.

- Editor(?) asks if she wasn’t just bringing in dramatic elements for the sake of creating more hurdles for Ash? Yoshida agrees that there was that too.

- Yoshida also talks about how she initially wanted to portray the main character as a more lively boy, since the ones she drew in the past were all kinda gloomy. She was aiming for something more positive or more shounen manga-esque, but it didn’t turn out that way in the end lol.

- Gackt says he was intrigued by certain words that came up in the series too. When he got to the word “Aslan,” a lot of stories started springing up inside him. At the same time, he got an inspiration for a song. That was when he came up with “Asrun Dream.” He didn’t know how to spell the word, so he had to do some research.

- Yoshida says that she doesn’t think the way he pronounced it is right… she thinks it’s supposed to sound more complicated? She talks about how she took French as a foreign language module in college, and she learned things like how the “h” is silent. For example, you’d pronounce hotel like “otel.” Anyway she thinks that there might be something like that as well when it comes to “Aslan.”

- Gackt asks about her readers’ reactions. Yoshida says that the most common one among girls is that they often identify with Eiji. They want to be Eiji, and they want to save Ash. And upon reaching the end, there was a lot of “Please don’t kill him.”

- Gackt asks if she’s thought of writing a whole story about Eiji and Sing after Ash’s death. Yoshida says that that story (GoL i guess) was supposed to be much longer... about how the two of them are going through life in present-day New York. But because of page restrictions and stuff when it came to compiling it into a volume, it had to be cut short. She says that the original story on its own was as long as an entire volume.

- Gackt says that he’s mentioned liking BF in a newsletter to his fanclub and that he’s drawn a portrait (of Ash? idk). Yoshida asks to see it and he’s like “sure” lol

- Editor says that BF feels very much like an American movie. Yoshida mentions that she had given the rights for a movie adaptation to Sakamoto Ryuichi, but for various reasons it ended up not happening. “Plus, River is no longer here too.” It was something like that.

- Gackt is asked if there’s any character he wants to play, and he says Shorter. Editor asks if that means he’s willing to cut his hair. Gackt says he would; he’d turn it into a mohawk, and then he’d shave it so that he can say this line in the movie: “I’m growing it out!”

- He also mentions wanting to play Arthur. Yoshida says that role might suit him better… the sad young man from the gloomy villains’ side. (t/l note: /raises eyebrow at “sad young man”)

- Initially, Gackt thought that he could do Ash or Arthur. But he felt that Shorter would be the toughest to play, so that’s why he prefers Shorter. Especially his final scene where he says, “Kill me.” What kind of expression should he make for that? A smile would be the toughest, wouldn’t it? And Shorter smiles a lot. Just what kind of feelings would there be behind that smile?

- Yoshida says she feels honored as a mangaka to know that he reads that deeply. Usually, she disappoints people because she always ends up saying “I never thought that far.” Editor says, but that means you’re writing it subconsciously right? Yoshida says well, I guess so.

- Editor says that, with such passion for the series, Gackt would be able to come up with a soundtrack or an image album, wouldn’t he? Gackt says yes, and that he’s come up with so many songs as he was reading the series. 

- He talks about how “Asrun Dream” has its own story behind it. Ash wakes up in the morning while Eiji is still asleep in bed, and he goes to lean against the window, looking out. That’s the scene inside him that evoked the song. Yoshida says that she would like to listen to it. Gackt says that it’s not released publicly and no one knows about it, but he still has it as an old song.

- Editor says that he should release it as a solo album, with the jacket art done by Yoshida. Yoshida’s like, wait what’s going on? lol. Gackt says of course, when the time comes he will request for it. If she refuses, he would do a dogeza all the way ‘til morning. Everyone laughs. He’s like, I’ll even quit my job. And she says that she feels the pressure mounting now lol.

- Gackt says that he’s always wanted to write down all the songs that come to him as he’s reading a story, and then compile them into an album bundled with a little book, like “please listen to this while you’re reading the book.” If there’s a chance, he’d definitely like to try it out. He says that he would always be waiting for that chance until the day he dies.

here’s a pic of her workspace: