Agotta love it!

just to note again, these are not all the things shirahama tweets (a lot of it is just plain reactions to the events in the episode). i focus on things that seem to provide extra info about the wha setting or characters, though i might also include things about shirahama in a more general sense

1. the spaces usually have set members every time: shirahama, hebizou (nihonjin no shiranai nihongo, heaven's design team), suzuki (barbarities, heaven's design team), and kamentostu (i'm not as familiar but judging from his twitter he does cute little comics and comic essay stuff like interviews).

2. depending on the talk, they may plan for it (by making an announcement with a date and time on twitter) and have guest speakers who are other mangaka (so far at least). so far i think the guests have been: yamazaki kore (the magus' bride) and yamaguchi tsubasa (blue period)

3. for planned spaces, they've created the hashtag #漫画島談話室 (Manga Island Lounge) where you could tweet questions at them. they also use the hashtag to refer to the spaces in general, and sometimes tag related tweets with it as well

4. during the 2nd space (which was one they planned for and had people submit questions) they answered a lot of questions that i think some users did their best to write into english. hebizou has the best english of the group so she did most of the actual interpretation during the space and translated everyone's answers back into english as best she could. you may find some of the answers by looking through that tag

5. to be honest shirahama doesn't talk all that much compared to the other 3 regulars mainly b/c i think she tends to do most of her work at night when they meet and is concentrating while everyone speaks

6. there's a running joke starting from the 1st space about kamentotsu-sensei and his conch horn (horagai). i believe he lives near the water where ships pass and so the others could hear ship horns in the bg and compared it to a conch horn. in japan, one use of conch horns was to signal warfare and this sound is often used for humor today. kamentotsu-sensei later went to a hardware or general store and somehow made a horn (he said it mostly resembled a medieval horn bugle) to blow into for the joke.

7. a good chunk of conversation is about their pets. shirahama has her two dogs, kamentotsu has a cat (who is often heard in the bg), i think hebizou and suzuki have both cats and dogs. the most recent 3rd space topic was pretty much solely about their pets lol.

8. one time, i think during the 2nd or 3rd space, shirahama was able to finish inking 6 pages. the others called her a monster (bakemono), which is said with the same tone and intention as complimenting someone in english as a "beast"

9. suzuki is often enjoying a drink (mostly wine it sounds like), so i guess she is often done with work for the day by the time the spaces start

10. during the 3rd space, they were talking about about traveling and someone who went to scandanavia or somewhere in north europe mentioned how there weren't really mountains in the background where they were. for japanese people, there are almost always mountains in the background, and when japanese people travel they can get really wowed by flat landscapes with nothing for miles. this brought up an interesting conversation where how where you grew up or live in can influence the subconscious assumptions you have (they were like "you'd think at least in the very north of europe there'd be mountains right? but it was really empty!")

11. related to above, this later prompted a comment by one of them about how shirahama's backgrounds don't tend to look super "european" or "japanese" (based on the plants). shirahama then talked about how she tried to consciously prevent the world of witch hat from looking too much like one or the other, and specifically mentioned that she designed the cups seen in the manga after chinese/asian tea cups and japanese sake cups (the wide ones), not english-style tea cups like we might expect from a fantasy work. kamentotsu was impressed and said that if it were him he'd probably just automatically draw a mug for the cups

12. they also talked about how sometimes they want to draw mountains in the background either b/c they just feel like there should be mountains in the bg (due to always seeing them in japan) or b/c they feel like they need to fill up the space lol

13. also related to traveling, shirahama and i think hebizou traveled to italy together one time but had some difficulties with the food because: hebizou is allergic to tomatoes and shirahama is lactose intolerant. everyone joked about that and they said it kinda felt like the unasked question was: "what exactly did you come to italy for then?" ahaha

14. during the 1st space i think they had gotten onto the topic of working with what they want to show in their work vs. what their editors recommend based on how they think it will be perceived by the japanese public. kamentotsu brought up how (i believe) he and his editor had a somewhat hypothetical conversation about showing a same-sex couple holding hands in the background of a scene with people walking around, just as a simple detail of the bg. the editor suggested against it b/c of how the public might react to it, and this launched a long talk among all the mangaka. they all seem to be on the same page that they believe showing such minor details in a way that normalizes them and shows that it's not a big deal if a same-sex couple appears in public is important for readers to see. shirahama i think said "there are all types of readers and we should try to accommodate for that variety"

15. going back to pets, hebizou's cat is very smart and can get into almost any cabinet in her house. suzuki mentioned that hebizou's house looked almost prison like due to all the fences and locks she had to install. hebizou's previous dog was also very good at teaching the cat when it was still young, and would swat it when it tried to bother it when it was sleeping. as a result, hebizou's cat doesn't bother her when she's sleeping. kamentotsu's cat likes to sleep above or on his head ("it really stinks when the butt is facing your face"). suzuki's cat likes to bat things off shelves and she mentioned that she's switched to wooden mugs b/c they won't break if the cat pushes it off the table.

16. one thing that was talked about in the 3rd space was the "medieval feast" that shirahama and others would do sometimes pre-covid. kamentotsu hasn't been to one yet so they explained it to him. it's apparently a trip made up of mangaka and illustrators and everyone cooks food that i think is meant to feel medieval (wooden bowls and utensils, charcuterie boards, candle lighting, etc). they rent a cabin that allows for open fire cooking. yamazaki kore-sensei is apparently very good at identifying local flora and knows the best bark to use for kindling. also she dresses up in a cloak like a witch and often cooks using a big cauldron over the campfire.

shirahama was the host of the space and at the beginning suzuki and hebizou hadn't joined yet so she was trying to fill up the silence. "i hope they come soon~" and "doing this by myself is pretty hard lol" was said a lot haha.

shirahama finished 3 pages during the space, since she was still working. what a beast!

sometimes shirahama gets asked worldbuildling questions (like the bday question) and will be like "maybe there's this" and "yea that might exist" to someone's suggestion. to which suzuki would often say "you haven't thought about this at all haven't you! you can just say you don't know or haven't thought about it instead of trying to pretend you have a nicely detailed answer lol".

i've forgotten the original context now but otagio became a topic of discussion for a bit. one thing was whether or not fudemushi exist in otagio's world (the modern au) and shirahama said they were probably something that would exist in zoos but wouldn't really be raised as pets. otagio didn't have his own fudemushi. also apparently in otagio's world fudemushi are like, a genre?? i suppose they're treated kinda like pokemon and that there exist other fudemushi works outside of otagio's fudemushi wars.

cafes became a topic, since sakura's work currently has a collaboration cafe going on, and rather than going with "a cafe based off the spinoff kitchen of witch hat" they went with "would otagio go there?" as the first thing to say (a japanese fan friend tweeted how they liked that otagio is beloved among the regulars).

at the beginning there was actually talk about the "leaks" of the anime announcement. shirahama mentioned that when she saw it buzzing among the international fans she wasn't sure what to do. since there are a lot of things she's not allowed to talk about regarding the anime, she often stays silent about it on twitter aside from saying "i'm the author of a work getting an anime adaption". everybody did say that fortunately the japanese fandom wasn't spreading leaks/news before the announcement so the element of surprise was kept locally at least.

shirahama talked about how when she was a kid, she didn't like it when animals had clothes on or walked on two legs like a human. she would often take off all the clothes and position the doll on all fours, which hebizou mentioned would be a concerning scene to witness a child do

hebizou didn't seem to tweet this last question, but "what magic tool would you like to use? i'd like to use the soar shoes" was asked at the end. suzuki mentioned that the shoes must actually be really difficult to use since there's only stop and go, and shirahama said that while the shoes are a bestseller there's nothing to stop other types of flying accessories or clothes. and the first example she gave was "for example, a pair of underpants where you clench your butt to activate the glyph". as you can imagine, a statement like that lit a fire of discussion. she also (jokingly) said that everybody in the wha world has thighs of thunder due to using the soar shoes. and the other also imagined what the learning period for the shoes was like (e.g. the teacher tying a rope to the kids when they're practicing). but ultimately the "flying underpants" became a hot topic, enough to replace the "wet futon" power. for context, a previous space that shirahama and suzuki were hosting got onto the topic of "what would you want to be able to make appear from your hands?" and shirahama's answer i believe was "i want to make wet futons from my hands" to help put out fires. the previous space was pretty wacky and in this space shirahama and suzuki said that having hebizou around really helped keep discussions on track ("secretary power").

honestly, i'm pretty sure there are other topics that were notable but the "flying underpants" at the end was so powerful that it clearly blew out all other tidbits from my brain.

wait i actually remembered some more stuff!

when miya came on, shirahama noted that her mom was a big fan of miya's work (which has an anime adaption currently) and would sometimes relay messages to miya through her daughter lol. hebizou's mother is also a fan of shirahama's work.

more on the animals wearing clothes part, but shirahama mentioned that if the animal was on a stand of some sort she'd also cut it off because she preferred for the animals to be not attached to anything. but oftentimes she would have to cut off the animals at the ankles instead, to everyone's horror. nowadays shirahama is a "regular" dog owner who enjoys dressing up her dogs. (hebizou doesn't dress up her dog though).

the spellings of the characters' names is made by the translators, and apparently they don't check in with shirahama to the surprise of the others. miya notes that translators check in with her a lot about spelling, though as she is a writer text is probably something paid more attention to. hebizou and suzuki note that for heaven's design team they wrote a guideline for translators to follow for future names (i.e. "the names follow this theme so just translate it like that").

the members of this space were the usual shirahama, suzuki, and hebizou along with guests: kazuki miya (author of Ascendance of a Bookworm) and sakura sawa (author of Momo and Manji) who both joined in later

questions and comments were encouraged to be posted to the manga island lounge hashtag (#漫画島談話室). the questions (translated below) that were picked were interpreted by hebizou, who also wrote answers back in japanese and tweeted them.

question: what inspired you to draw this story? shirahama has always enjoyed fantasy works, but one big influence for witch hat was her illustrator friend saying that she didn't like people watching her work because it felt like "the magic was being dispersed". some other works she took inspiration from was "lord of the rings", "alfheim no kishi", and another japanese manga called "グランローヴァ物語" (loosely: the story of gran rova, though this doesn't seem to have an english translation officially)

question: what type of music do you listen to when you work? answer: shirahama likes drone videos of nature. lately she's really enjoyed music by Fantastic Youth. she also mentioned that what she's drawing can influence what she listens to, such as wanting to listen to songs with cute female voices when drawing because coco is a young girl.

question: what happens if you get sleepy while working? answer: shirahama watches tv, and listed wandavision, moon knight, and boba fett as recent series. (she's especially excited for the upcoming obi wan show)

suzuki drinks strong green tea (matcha, gyokuro). hebizou drinks alcohol, though i think she also mentioned that she'll just simply go to bed when sleepy.

(not a question, but) a fan from korea mentioned that they went to the art exhibition for witch hat atelier a few years ago (rather early on in the series' history) everybody expressed a lot of surprise and gratitude for the fan, and also talked about how the gallery was apparently in a weird hole-in-the-wall place and that it was hard to find the entrance. shirahama would like it if a future exhibition could take place overseas.

question: what did you eat for your birthday? answer: shirahama bought a cake and ate it and celebrated by herself. hebizou and suzuki immediately went "you poor thing" but shirahama later expanded that she actually ate the cake with her assistants. she also said buying her own cake was fine cuz it was just "self care" haha. (she was still working as usual on her birthday). suzuki said that next time she'll buy a cake for shirahama. 😭

regarding a comment about the wha hashtag shirahama not only looks at everything tagged on twitter, she even saves them to her computer! she organizes by whether they're art or cosplay or whatever, and sometimes goes to look at stuff as a pick-me-up. she'll generally consider anything tagged as being ok for her to share on twitter, so if you draw something that you'd like under the radar you can simply not tag it (she might still see it though). also, apparently her editor also looks at everything tagged lol. everybody talked about how they're always happy to receive fanart.

question: who do you enjoy drawing the most? answer: coco. she has a lot of expressions and hand movements to draw.

question: is there a custom of giving presents or eating specific foods on their birthday in the wha world? answer: there might be [birthday] cake. aside from cake they might grill some meat? or perhaps they just prepare whatever the bday person likes to eat? there might also be presents given?

hebizou: that's so ambiguous (in other words, shirahama likely didn't think of anything for bday culture in wha lol)

question: what do you think about or value when creating characters? answer: shirahama, in the beginning, mostly built a character around their negative points. she would imagine criticisms against the character, and would build in positive points with the intention of being like a friend that defends them. (e.g. 'coco's not very interesting' would have shirahama going "no she's doing her best! and she's good at so-and-so!") nowadays she mostly creates characters based on their roles in the story.

suzuki (and i think sakura and miya were in the space at this point) mentioned that she usually creates based on the role first.

question: are there any real life models for the characters? answer: qifrey and orugio are based on teachers shirahama had when she was a student. qifrey's model was an easygoing person who liked nature, while orugio's model was someone who was more strict. shirahama likened them to a "candy and whip" combo, which is the japanese equivalent of "carrot and stick". their appearances were not modeled (orugio's model was apparently bald or close-shaven).

also, king dean was apparently a design that shirahama came up with in middle school. he was originally named yayoi (the old name for "march") and was part of a set of other characters named after the old months. shirahama notes that it's a piece of "black history" (i.e. the things you did in your youth, esp. middle school, that are now cringe and horrifyingly embarrassing to you now) but also noted that "it's something that all otaku do isn't it!?" lol. if a drawing from this period still exists, it might actually be with a friend since it seemed it was part of the relay manga she participated in (expanded upon later)

question: what do you do when you're stuck? answer: shirahama says she often worries but hasn't really ever gotten stuck in the story. she often already has the next chapter outlined in her head when working on the current one.

suzuki is usually being "chased by the deadline" so she doesn't really have time to get stuck lol.

miya also doesn't get stuck with her story, if anything she has too many ideas to put in and often rewrites a lot figuring out what to include.

both hebizou and sakura talk with the people around them. hebizou specifically mentions going with whatever seems to have the best reaction.

there was also some conversation about how sometimes the chapter/story you barely come up with when you're really stuck gets really good reactions compared to something that was easier to make.

question: what led you to drawing manga? answer: shirahama started drawing manga because it was the easiest to do (cue bewildered reactions from everybody going "easy!?"). she explained that with movies you need a lot of equipment, and with animation you need to draw a lot (hebizou: "you need to draw a lot with manga too...."), but with manga you can do it with just paper and pen. miya chimed in saying "in that case wouldn't writing a story be the easiest of them all?", but shirahama said she already drew a lot and she couldn't keep up writing compared to drawing.

1. in regards to height, shirahama doesn't really have specific numbers aside from qifrey and coco who she gave a general idea about in the reproduction selection. she mostly thinks about it in the general "who's taller than who". garuga is likely the tallest person, followed by or maybe equal to hihart. tetia is the tallest of the students in qifrey's atelier.

2. i actually asked about everyone's ages, and to this shirahama replied that she doesn't really have set ages for the characters either. in the reproduction selection, she originally wrote coco as being 14 years old, but now it seems she's of the mind that the girls are likely between 12-14, but could also be younger.

3. qifrey and orugio are close in age and are pictured as being between their late twenties to early thirties (the others all said "oh they're quite young [compared to us]! lol). qifrey doesn't know his actual age due to his memory loss though. she also mentioned that while birthdays are celebrated, there isn't much emphasis placed on age in the wha world. different people develop at different paces (and may even change teachers), so most people tend to focus most on how long they've been an independent witch (i.e. how long since they've graduated).

4. the topic of what kind of magic you'd like to see came up, and people were invited to tweet replies to the hashtag so everyone could read them. some notables ones were sound-based magic (using magic to create synthesizer music, or creating the sound of running water in a desert land) and a wholesome one was "to be able to make really delicious bread". a whole bunch of other ideas were also talked about, though shirahama noted that most of them would be considered forbidden magic.

5. however, using magic to clean is considered ok in the wha world, as it's not directly affecting or changing the human body. so you could walk through a ring of magic if you were covered in mud and come out squeaky clean without this being an issue. cleaning magic was originally brought up because someone asked if creating magic to make cleaning your dogs easy was alright.

6. speaking of forbidden magic, there was some talk about how it would be nice to see characters drawn as brimhats. shirahama said that aesthetically agatto would look very fitting, while tetia would probably look similar to ininia (lots of frills). kamentostu said that qifrey as a brimhat would be no laughing matter. and i believe shirahama said that orugio would be unlikely to become a brimhat (such a good boi). though shirahama hasn't drawn anyone as a brimhat, she did mention seeing fanart from foreign fans and enjoying that.

7. someone asked why fudemushi (brushbug) seemed to like to be with riche a lot in the series, and shirahama said that this was because riche has a personality (quiet voice, relaxed demeanor, and doesn't try to actively play with animals) that would make animals like her. she compared it to cats, and how often times cats like people who don't like cats, because they don't bother them. in that regards, she said that fudemushi isn't really attached to tetia, and that it would probably hate hihart lol. orugio wasn't mentioned, but i would guess that fudemushi likes him for similar reasons to riche, or maybe there's another like orugio feeds it (i know one more possible factor, but that will come in a later post about the reproduction selection)

8. there were actually a lot of fudemushi questions haha. another one was whether anyone else in the atelier tried to name fudemushi like qifrey did in chapter 15 with "funfun" (pronounced "foon foon"). the tone of shirahama's answer was kinda silly, as the answer to this doesn't really affect anything, so she said that yea, technically the funfun name went through despite fudemushi showing its displeasure. she also said that, as is common with pet names, other nicknames and variations may get created by the girls so fudemushi could eventually get called "fun-chan" or "fufu" hahaha.

9. there are bones in the fudemushi tail, and fudemushi also come in different sizes. possibly as a joke, shirahama said that maybe in northern countries there could be really big fudemushi (dakimakura size), or even big enough to ride on.

10. agatto was qifrey's first student, and shirahama said the order was: agatto, tetia, riche, then obviously coco. this brought on a comment by, i think, hebizou who asked if agatto calling herself qifrey's "number one" student in chapter 11 was referring to the order, which shirahama confirmed. like in english, the "number one" term used in japanese can be used to say that something is the best (i.e. number one in skill) or the first (number one in order). shirahama also noted that while it's not really something focused on, usually the thought is that the first student is also the best simply because they spent the longest time learning under that teacher.

11. to be honest i was working during this space and i kinda actually missed part of this answer so i can't be 100% sure, but i believe shirahama actually confirmed the repeated syllable rule when naming characters. she said she hadn't really made the rule yet when naming the earliest character like qifrey and the girls, but probably starting with beldaruit and easthies is when she started really applying it. also, when thinking of a new name she often tests it in google to see if anything else will come up, to prevent confusing results if people were to search for it. a funny thing about qifrey's name is that his name written in japanese is the same as writing "key free", which is a term often used for cars where instead of turning a key you push a button to start it, so cars often come up if you google his name.

12. one of the speakers was a big fan of garuga (i wanna say it was sasaki), and they pointed out his appearance in volume 9. *slight spoiler* garuga is shown leaving duty early to see the festival with his lover, and everyone said he was likely able to take time off during such a busy event because he did a ton of overtime beforehand to build up his leave time.

13. hebizou actually knows a whole bunch of the future plot and events to come, possible to the end, because shirahama often consults her to get her feedback on certain plot points. she only knows general events though, so how exactly that plot is shown and drawn in the manga is still a surprise for her. suzuki said that she wouldn't be able to do that because she hates spoilers lol.

14. this isn't wha related but the space actually cut off during the talk. it was likely because twitter was experiencing heavy traffic due to the olympics opening at that time in japan. hebizou got her connection dropped multiple times throughout, the poor woman.

15. there was a person who concepted an entire theme park based on witch hat atelier for their school project which was incredibly impressive. shirahama has retweeted all the posts for that project and at the end wrote a thanks post in english to that person. the other speakers had also seen it and they all thought it was really cool

16. satou-sensei, who draws the spinoff, was a listener and was noticed by all the speakers ("ah! it's satou-sensei! satou-sensei is listening!"). they were invited but had to decline because they had their assistants over for work.

edit: these are tidbits i ended up remembering after i originally posted, so anything i write below this in the future is an addition

17. someone asked about orugio being in the atelier, which led to shirahama explaining a bit about how the watchful eye system works (mainly just repeating what was said in the story, which is that they stay with witches who don't live in major cities and have students to prevent abuse and whatnot). when asked if orugio pays rent to qifrey, shirahama actually said that the concept of rent doesn't exist, at least for witches. as they are considered "nationless" in order to stay neutral, they actually receive a "magic tax" from countries in order to ensure that when there are disasters the witches will come and help.

18. shirahama also went a bit into the work system of witches who seem to do another job besides simply helping people like orugio. it seems that for orugio he's got a few staple patrons who seem to regularly support him by requesting his work. lord claddo could be one of them, considering orugio had worked for him previously. shirahama also talked about how ateliers in france are essentially shops that focus on a specialty (e.g. an atelier that makes shoes), and it seems that some witches will form ateliers in that traditional sense like a guild (especially if they've just graduated and are short on money).

19. related to the naming of characters, shirahama apparently has stock of names she wrote down in a list to use for future characters. she mentioned that she starts from the characters personality first, then goes on to design them (and then give them a name that is fitting).