I recently got this book, 少女漫画家「家」の履歴書, which has interviews of 12 shoujo manga artists who debuted in the 1970s where they talk about their homes and families. The book's pretty interesting. They were originally published in a Japanese magazine over a span of time, Shuukan Bunshun.
Sons of Eve, which started its serialization in January 1976 issue of Akita Shoten’s Viva Princess magazine when I was 27 was the turning point for me. My interest in world history, familiarity with Christian culture, glam rock, ballet, movies, literature, humor… I poured all the things I loved, I was knowledgeable about and the curiosity which I had kept bottled up inside of me to The Van Roses, the band of homosexuals, and let it all out into the wild.
Before becoming a freelancer*, things have been really harsh for me. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t draw the kind of manga the editors and the readers wanted to see for the life of me. If I hadn’t start freelancing, it would have been the end of me. But Sons of Eve even made me ask to myself: “Is it okay to put all this stuff into a shoujo manga?” The response of my editor at Akita Shoten was “More. MORE!” That really encouraged me (laughs).
*She used to have an exclusivity contract with Kodansha, which stipulated that she only drew for their magazines.”
I did From Eroica with Love with the same editor. The first chapter was released in the winter (December) issue of Princess in 1976, then it got a regular serialization. I adopted ideas from what was happening in the real world, and started drawing how fate brought a British master thief (Earl) and a German who works at the intelligence bureau of NATO (Major) together.
The shoujo manga tradition at the time was to set the story in a foreign country, which young girls admired so much. At the beginning, From Eroica with Love was one of those stories too. Which is why the Earl who got introduced in the first chapter has the image of a stereotypical shoujo manga character, with flowers in the background. However, Major who got introduced in the second chapter is someone who is miles away from what comes to mind when you think of shoujo manga. Drawing a straight-laced character like Major who says what he’s thinking with no filter whatsoever was extremely fun. With how international affairs escalated, I got a very positive response which allowed me to draw what like even more freely.
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