From Bureaucrat To Villainess

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What I’m writing here isn’t a word-for-word translation of the interview. I just jotted down some cool stuff about the manga and the mangaka that I got from reading the interview using MTL. Heads up: there’s a minor spoiler near the end!

• Akuyaku Reijo Tensei Ojisan (From Bureaucrat to Villainess) is a manga by Michiro Ueyama and it's still on going. It actually started as a short comic on Twitter, where it got 160k likes, which led to it being serialized pretty much right away.

• Ueyama said Kenzaburo’s "old man" personality comes from his own experiences and memories, but Kenzaburo isn’t based on him. He’s more like Ueyama’s idea of the "ideal uncle"

• Kenzaburo’s design is based on what men in their 50s looked like when Ueyama was a kid in the 1970s

• To figure out what stories younger readers might like, Ueyama checked out a bunch of Isekai manga—not just the "villainess" type

• A lot of Isekai stories he read had a pretty dark vibe. He thinks that’s because most Isekai stories are about being super overpowered or having cheat abilities, which gets repetitive after a while

• Ueyama became interested in "villainess" stories because of their polite tone and beautiful art styles. He felt they had "soothing" vibes that made it easy to get into the story

• Michiro Ueyama: "In manga aimed at younger audiences, older men are usually the bad guys—creepy (sexually harassing teenagers), bullying, or just plain awful. But as an older guy myself, I know plenty of decent older men out there. I wanted to show more of those kinds of respectable adults."

• SPOILER: Ueyama plans to give the story a happy ending. He feels it wouldn’t be right for Kenzaburo to die and leave his wife and daughter behind

• He also finds it hard to write revenge-type stories where characters get what’s coming to them. He thinks Tensei Ojisan is so well-liked because people are tired of seeing negativity in real life and don’t want to see it in their entertainment either

• Ueyama hopes that Tensei Ojisan can be enjoyed by people who don’t usually read Isekai or villainess stories and maybe even get them into the genre

• Some Isekai villainess stories with "healing" vibes recommended by Michiro Ueyama:

1. My Next Life as a Villainess

2. Endo and Kobayashi Live! The Latest on Tsundere Villainess Lieselotte

3. The Most Heretical Last Boss Queen: From Villainess to Savior

As much as I like the comedy side of this anime, I also like this tiny bit of Kenzaburo's life before getting isekai'd. We can see that he's content with his simple ordinary life and absolutely wants to go back to his previous life if he can.

If Tensei Ojisan is being adapted into stage play

From top to bottom: G Gundam, Zoids Chaotic Century, Fist of The North Star(?)

Bonus: The end card is made by Ryosuke Fuji, the artist for the Shangri-La Frontier manga