#yubisui

YUBISUI: It’s been a while (both bow slightly in greeting), I’ll be interviewing Kyo for this special interview. I’m YUBISUI who is the artist for The Zemeckises picture book.

Kyo: He used to be a roadie for DIR EN GREY in the past.

Y: Let’s move to the questions. Q- You always choose very stimulating titles, how did you decide on the title this time?

Kyo: As for the exhibition, I wanted it to be something you can feel, not only something you see. Thinking about something that is not only for one’s eyes I created this title.

Y: Q- Did you have an an image or theme for this exhibition from before?

Kyo: As we finished work on the previous photo book ‘Shikkaku’, I had photo shoots whenever I had some free time. I wanted it to be obviously something fine to exhibit, but more importantly something more me-like, something that doesn’t leave you unaffected. We proceeded wanting to accomplish that. I feel like there weren’t any issues. Ah, but maybe staff members had it hard. The event starts tomorrow, but.. it’s like… nothing arrived yet (laughing). And we had countless meetings. It was really hard to realize the image I had, to give it a shape. Songs are beings without shape so to express them giving them shape, in this limited space, it was hard. Also, Zemeckises book is still not released so we couldn’t show everything, we struggled with what to do. How was the [work on the] book for you?

Y: I worried a lot (laughing).

Kyo: When working on one thing you think if I do that it will change to this, get like this. You don’t know the final result until it’s done.

Y: Q- Which of the Zemeckises characters do you feel most affinity towards?

Kyo: I guess Hui. His personality is quite bad. His main trait is that he wants Penyu’s things, things of other people. But he also likes Penyu, so. He can’t show his affection well, and his greed usually wins, so he’s very human-like. He’s very greedy, but you just like him. He becomes an important character in the book.

YUBISUI: He was very cute to draw, very easy to draw. Unexpectedly his feelings show quite well. Q- From when did you start working on the story for the book?

Kyo: The first idea of a story comes when working on the characters or thinking of the layout. When working on the book the story got more detailed. There are no plans for next volumes, but I have some ideas what would be interesting to happen next.

Y: Were all characters created at the same time?

Kyo: No, the number of characters somehow increased. Hui is new.

Y: Kanji that Raimi-chan has are quite interesting.

Kyo: Ah, yeah. Sukekiyo is also a name of a band, there were The Inugamis… somehow it got connected. Mama loves sukekiyo (band), older bro loves DIR EN GREY (as character traits). Somehow those characters developed like that.

Y: Q-If The Zemeckises family was real, would you like to live with them?

K: Live with them? With Penyu maybe, but I have a feeling that his room would be dirty with food and sweets, so maybe not (laughing). I don’t like dirty rooms. (changing topic:) This time I requested things quite suddenly, so I think it was tough. But your drawing is amazing, like the face reflected in Mama’s eye, the details.

Y: This request came in a great timing (he laughed, just how little time did he get 😂).

K: But I really wanted to collaborate together from some time ago, to work together. For many years it was just a wish. But suddenly this time it became like this. 

Y: To think so much about what you would like as I did while drawing, it really brought back the time of being a roadie (Kyo started laughing, giggling almost 😂). Would you like this or that, he really likes this dark worldview, should we go to watch this movie and so on.

Kyo: Ha, I see (with a huge smile).

Y: With those memories fresh I was drawing, I am still in fact drawing, even now.