Matsumoto : I moved here (Oizumi Gakuen) 50 years ago. It is my final home. I am very happy to have found a good land. Fuji, and the ground is solid. I didn't know this when I moved here, but Toei Studios and Toei Animation are also located here, so it was like I was invited to live here.

Izumi : Yes.

Matsumoto : In addition, the botanist Dr. Tomitaro Makino, whom I used as a reference for my debut comic "The Adventure of the Honey Bee," lived in the next town over, as did Osamu Tezuka and Tetsuya Chiba, whom I met the day I came to Tokyo, and in the same ward was Shotaro Ishinomori, who was born the same month. There are countless other mysterious connections as well. It is truly mysterious.... How long have you lived in Oizumi?

Izumi : I have only been here for about five years. When I moved to Tokyo to become a manga artist, my relatives in Tokyo recommended Oizumi Gakuen. They recommended Oizumi Gakuen because it is a town where many manga artists live. And since my name is Izumi, I was almost forced to move there (lol).

Matsumoto : Hahaha.

Izumi : The first apartment was about 20 minutes by bicycle from the station, and the rent was about 30,000 yen.

--It was just like "Otoko Oidon" (lol).

Matsumoto : I also have fond memories of my younger days when I stayed at a boarding house in Hongo. I also got the jock itch (lol). It was so itchy. More than half of the men in my lodgings were like that. They didn't bathe. But it was embarrassing to go to the pharmacy and say, "I need medicine for a stink bug! I was embarrassed to go to the pharmacy and say, "I want some medicine for a jock itch! It's a feeling of hopelessness (lol).

Izumi : Ahhhh (lol).

Matsumoto : And then I thought, "Why not say it by its scientific name? I looked it up and found out it was jock itch. So I went to the pharmacy and shouted, "Give me some medicine for ringworm! I said loudly. Then the guy at the pharmacy said, "Oh, you have jock itch, too! (lol) But that freed me. (lol) But it freed me. I realized that it was a disease that could be cured if I just told them. So I drew the exact name of the product in the comic, including the product name, "Maseto Lotion," so that it could be read correctly in the comic. Save our fellow sufferers! I thought.

Izumi : I see. As long as you can say the name of the product, it's all right, isn't it?

Matsumoto: I received hundreds of thank-you letters from all over Japan. One of them was from a woman who said, "My boyfriend was cured thanks to your manga. Now the package for the Maseto Lotion medicine has my drawing on it.

Izumi : Wow!

Matsumoto : You know, I believe that manga should have a sense of purpose. I realized that after the incident with the jock itch.

Izumi : What is the purpose of drawing this...?

Matsumoto : Oh, yes. You see, Harlock's best friend, Tochiro Oyama, is a descendant of Shota Oyama, who is a descendant of Oidon, but what I mean is that even with that face and that body type, he managed to have descendants...

Izumi : Ah! I had the right partner... (lol).

Matsumoto : Young man, have hope! (lol)

--Matsumoto sensei's manga has many fascinating characters. I am also looking forward to seeing the movie "Captain Harlock" to be released this fall.

Matsumoto : This movie is a CG film, but it is a very hard work that was made by 120 staff members who were exhausted.

Izumi : I saw a preview of the movie, and it was really great! The design of the Arcadia was really cool! I was really excited. The images are so beautiful, and the scene where the Arcadia rams into another fighter plane and goes flying was really powerful. I could really feel Matsumoto's view of the world.

Matsumoto : That makes me happy. I was involved in the film as the general setting for the original story, and the staff worked really hard on it. We had to make a few corrections... Unlike normal animation, CG can be drawn in great detail and once a model is created, it can be moved freely, so it is very difficult to make corrections. But the ending is important.

Izumi : Yes, it is.

Matsumoto : I don't want the main characters to die. If they live, they'll figure it out eventually, won't they? Even if they fall, there is always the next one.

Izumi : If he lives, someday it will be good....

Matsumoto : If you let them die, they may receive a tearful response at that time, but there will be no next time. The writer is still alive and well, but the story of the characters is over. I once had a big argument with a producer about that. He kills. I let him live. We fought and fought, and I still managed to get my point across, but if I let go of his hand, he would kill him.

Izumi : I didn't realize that.

Matsumoto : These are characters that the writers worked so hard to create and give life to. Killing them is no joke. I should draw them when I die. Until then, I travel with them, riding the 999, the Arcadia, and so on.

--I guess this is Matsumoto sensei's unique way of looking at his work...or rather, his way of looking at life.

Izumi : Harlock's way of life is cool, too.

Matsumoto : Do you know the meaning of the pirate's skull, which is also the symbol of the Arcadia?　It is not to scare people. Under this flag, I am free. But I take full responsibility. In other words, it is a declaration of "I will fight even if I have to become bones.

--It is also the symbol of Matsumoto sensei.

Matsumoto : Yes, yes. This cap...when I first had it made, it was a white skull...but it just didn't look right. So I painted it red with a magic marker. I'm still alive. Of course, the current one was stitched with red thread from the beginning.

Izumi : Wow!

Matsumoto : Speaking of that, that bird that appears in Harlock, that also existed in real life. My next-door neighbor had a bird. It was a huge bird, like a parrot or a cockatoo, and it was kept on the deck of a tanker on the South American route. Sometimes he would say, "Oi! Oi! I said, When I asked, "What?", he replied, "You idiot!"

Izumi : Oh! (lol)

--I am impressed by Maetel as a character of Matsumoto sensei.

Matsumoto : I grew up in Kokura, where there were 31 movie theaters in one town. I also saw many pirate movies, which led me to Harlock. One of the films I saw there was my favorite, "Marianne de ma Jeunesse," which takes place in Arcadia, and the lead actress looks exactly like Maetel. I noticed it later.

Izumi : So you admire her?

Matsumoto : It's more of a genetic memory. I found a picture of my great-grandmother, a silver disc photo from around the time of the Meiji Restoration, at my family temple, and was surprised to see that she looked exactly like Maetel and Emeraldus. Until then, I had been unconsciously drawing these faces and had no idea why I was drawing them, but the picture of my great-grandmother made me understand. I guess the gene stores the feeling of liking that kind of face.

Izumi : That's why you felt so intimidated to have me draw Maetel this time.

Matsumoto : Hahaha. But I am sure there is something like that in the pictures you draw. What your ancestors saw and what faces they liked are instinctively passed down to you as genetic memory. The memory of hundreds and thousands of ancestors. That is what makes your "individuality.

Izumi : Is that so?

Matsumoto : Many memories overlap and become individuality. For example, what about your hometown?

Izumi : Ehime Prefecture, surrounded by the sea and mountains...

Matsumoto : If that is the case, you can draw a lot of things you did at the sea and in the mountains.

Izumi : Yes. When I was a child, I used to run around in the sea and mountains. I jumped into the sea from high places. Many of my relatives were fishermen, so I got to experience many things, such as being taken on a boat ride.

Matsumoto : Oh, that's great. That is a good idea, because those things, including physical fitness, will come in handy in the future. That's all right then. I can vividly describe what I experienced by myself. It is not enough to just use photographic data, is it?

Izumi : That's right. I also place importance on visiting places by myself and seeing them with my own eyes as much as possible.

Matsumoto : That's good. Matsumoto : That's good. I too was full of curiosity and did many things. When I was a child, I dove into the sea to go through the hull of a cargo ship, and I ran around the graves to see the bones in the ossuary. The head priest was a man of virtue, and he tolerated me, saying, "Your descendants are healthy, so your ancestors won't be offended.

Izumi : Really!?

Matsumoto : I tried to duel with a lion in Africa and caught and ate a crocodile deep in the Amazon. I did all kinds of things.

Izumi : Not so much.

Matsumoto : If I did that now, I would get caught. lol

Matsumoto : I like Oizumi because even though it is within the 23 wards of Tokyo, it is a place that is close to my memories of running around in the fields and mountains. The air of nature is still there.

Izumi : I feel at home in Oizumi, too.

Matsumoto : That's right. Things have changed since I moved here 50 years ago, but the atmosphere of the land has not changed. Shin-Mejiro-dori used to be called Jusanken-dori, but it was still a gravel road from here to the Yahara area. It was finally paved at the time of the Tokyo OlympicsGames in 1964. At that time, there were still only rice paddy roads, and I had just gotten my driver's license. I often fell off my bicycle when I drove on them (lol).

Izumi : Really?

Matsumoto : Yes. My car used to get stuck in the dirt road. Come to think of it, there was a time when Mr. Akatsuka (Fujio) was able to buy a car and drove it to Oizumi. In a Mercedes Benz convertible. So he came under the house and shouted loudly, "Hey Matsumoto! You buy this one too! And then we all went to Hakone together. And then we all drove to Hakone, and he asked me to drive too, and when I switched back to Mr. Akatsuka, I got caught for speeding.

Izumi : Wow, what a disaster!　But you all interacted with each other very well, didn't you?

Matsumoto : Chiba-chan even ran the marathon from Fujimidai to my house.

Izumi : Wow!

Matsumoto : In the past, I used to hang out with my manga artist friends, and there are many animators and voice actors around here. But you don't get together much now, do you?

Izumi : Yes, it is.

Matsumoto : What a waste. I got an SOS from Mr. Tezuka in the middle of the night saying, "The projector is broken and I can't edit! I went to his rescue with my own projector on my bicycle, and when I added Mr. Ishinomori and the three of us called ourselves the three biggest anime enthusiasts in Japan, we were raided by the police at the same time. They thought we were taking their money to show other people... In the end, the detective said, "If it's for research, it's fine. Good luck! But they were still boasting about it, calling it "the case of the three biggest anime maniacs in Japan," even though they hadn't been caught (lol). But all three of us fulfilled our dreams. I guess that's because of the friendly competition.

Izumi : It is encouraging to know that there are people of the same generation who are in the same profession or share the same spirit.

Matsumoto : When we were young, everyone was in the same boat. It was a mess. We would do things like having a "yak-nabe" (a pot dish cooked in the dark).

Izumi : Wow!

Matsumoto : And then we would talk about our dreams. What do I want to do? And then, "What do I want to do? And the women the editor brought along who wanted to become manga artists.

Izumi : That's nice.

Matsumoto : Well, during those heated discussions, female writers...at that time they were just eggs, but I guess they gradually became interested in it. They started to appear one by one. At that time, men were drawing girls' manga, and we suddenly realized that we were being kicked out by these women. It was a great tragedy (lol).

Izumi : Wow! That's harsh!

Matsumoto : But you see, a manga artist is free, but absolutely lonely. That is why we say, "People are people, we are what we are, but we get along with each other. I don't care who draws my work or what they draw. I don't care what anyone says about my work. But let's get along with each other. That's what I mean.

--I think we should have a Nerima Manga artists get-together in Oizumi in the near future.

Izumi : I would love to! May I invite you?

Matsumoto : It might be interesting since we don't have much interaction with the younger generation these days.

Izumi : I'd love to have you join us then!