#やるよやるよやるよやるよ | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

asnowperson · 1 month ago

Text

#3 Yoshida Akimi's 1985 The Making of Bobby's Girl interview

Please check the interviews masterpost here.

Yoshida Akimi & Matsumoto Takashi “I was brimming with curiosity and I still do”

Manga artist Yoshida Akimi and lyricist Matsumoto Takashi have a talk for the "making of book" of anime movie “Bobby ni Kubittake”. This is the first meeting of this busy pair. Yoshida-sensei, who had just gotten her driving license, and Matsumoto-san who likes motorcycles have a discussion on driving, among other things.

Winter of 1985.

About “It started as I was gazing upon Tokyo under a cloudy sky”.

First published: 1985, “The Making of Bobby’s Girl” (Kadokawa Shoten)

Matsumoto Takashi (Lyricist) Born on 16 July 1949. He has been active in the band Happy End along with Ohtaki Eiichi, Hosono Haruomi and Suzuki Shigeru since his student days. His first work as a lyricist is “Natsuiro no Omoide” for Tulip. After that, he created many popular songs for Matsuda Seiko, KinKi Kids and Nakagawa Shouko.

Yoshida: You worked on Eiichi Ohtaki-san’s “Niagara” albums, right? Nagai Hiroshi-san did the artwork for those. Those works of yours have left a strong impression on me, Matsumoto-san.

Matsumoto: You mean “A Long Vacation”, right? That was the most natural work of mine.

Yoshida: When you write lyrics, how does it go? Do you write them while making up a story?

Matsumoto: I don’t really know how I write them (laughs). When I’m satisfied with what I have, it’s like when only the last scene of a movie flashes before your eyes. You only have 3 minutes to sing, and I can’t write everything from 1 to 100, so I only write from 1 to 12, and if possible, those 100 lingers in my head. I like that feel the best. I can never do it that well though (laughs). More often than not, what I come up with is similar to placeholders, makeshift products.

Yoshida: I see.

Matsumoto: In Japanese poems and songs, there’s often a lyrical description of one’s feelings. There’s nothing descriptive or narrative, so I sometimes experiment with that. When I do, they might be vague, but I still write stories inside my head.

— What about Yoshida-san? Do you decide on the story until its very end and then write?

Yoshida: Well, I must that... But during serializations, there are times when I don’t think about the rest of the story at the very beginning (laughs).

Matsumoto: So you make it up as you go along (laughs)?

Yoshida: They seem to decide how long the serialization would be for other artists, but my situation is more uncertain. Nothing is decided from the beginning (laughs). The only thing I know is the fact that I will have a serialization, but I have no idea how long it would be or what it will be. So, I pretty much don’t talk to the editors about that stuff either. Because I don’t think about anything until right before the start of serialization (laughs).

Matsumoto: Do you only decide on the opening setting and the characters?

Yoshida: Yes, I can’t do without those, so I make sure to at least present them.

Matsumoto: Was it California Monogatari? That was pretty long.

Yoshida: That was the same, I hadn’t decided on anything at the beginning. They asked me if I could wrap things up in 4 chapters or so, and I drew it with that in mind. When it got popular, they asked me if I could continue, and that’s how it got longer and longer. And then, it abrubtly ended. When I said I would be ending it in the next month’s issue, my editor was like “What?”. I ended it with this single sentence: “But there is nothing left to draw!” (laughs) I was like, if you don’t like it, you can try drawing it yourself (laughs).

Matsumoto: You are harsh.

Yoshida: Have you ever had a writer’s block?

Matsumoto: I have one all year round (laughs).

— You have deadlines, don’t you?

Matsumoto: No work can truly begin without deadlines. So, sometimes people say “bring it when you’re done”. Then I would not get it done for eternity. I prioritize those who pester me the most.

Yoshida: You’re right. I’m the same. I start with the ones who call me the most frequently.

— What are you like when you are at the end of your rope? For instance, what do you do have a change of mood?

Yoshida: Hopping in my car and going for a drive is nice. Ideas keep coming to mind when I’m about to get into an accident (laughs).

Matsumoto: Do you like cars?

Yoshida: I just got my driver’s license, that’s why I find it fun. Many unexpected things happen.

Matsumoto: Do you go on drives alone?

Yoshida: I used to go alone. But now my friends live in my neighborhood, so I have them come with me, or they take me along.

Matsumoto: Where you go? Hakone?

Yoshida: We don’t go all the way there. We stop at Shonan. We only do short drives.

Matsumoto: At night?

Yoshida: Right, at night.

Matsumoto: We are doing the same thing (laughs).

— Matsumoto-san, do you also getthe sudden urge to go on drives at night?

Matsumoto: Yes, but of course, I can’t do that in winter (laughs). But I do in summer. Because I’m into motorcycles too.

Yoshida: How nice! I’m thinking of getting a driving license for motorcycles.

Matsumoto: I think you shouldn’t.

Yoshida: I shouldn’t? Is it that scary?

Matsumoto: It is dangerous. That’s why I never recommend it to anyone. It’s just like smoking and how you tell people who have never smoked to never try it. There’s nothing to be done about people who already ride bikes. Telling people who ride motorcycles to stop is hard (laughs). I can’t stop either.

Yoshida: Kataoka-san said the same. After driving a car, I have started to think that driving is indeed dangerous. Like, you can get trapped in the car.

Matsumoto: When you are in a car, if someone were to slam into you from the side, only the car would be crashed in. But when you are on a motorcycle, in case someone crashes into you from the side, you’d fly away about 5 meters. If you’re careless enough to use the front brakes, you’ll overturn.

Yoshida: The back wheel would be up in the air.

Matsumoto: Even if you were to crash into a stopping car, you would still be flying in the sky (laughs), depending on your speed.

Yoshida: Now that’d be a disaster. One of my friends crashed into a stopping truck, and she was severely injured. She was wearing her helmet, but she says as she was thinking “wow, I’m swimming through midair”, the next thing she knew was that she was lying on a hospital bed.

Matsumoto: That’s what I’m talking about. I had two accidents myself. It was the other party’s fault though.

— Did you also fly?

Matsumoto: I did. It was only 2-3 meters, but I thought, “yeah, I am flying” (laughs).

Yoshida: Even when you are wearing your helmet, if you hit your head, you would still lose your memories, right?

Matsumoto: When I was a first grade student, I was hit by a motorcycle. I almost died back then, but when I came to, my mother and father were looking at me.

— Were you scared of motorbikes after that?

Matsumoto: I was so scared of them. I began to ride them only recently. After reading Kataoka-san’s “Kare no Ootobai, Kanojo no Shima” (His Motorbike, Her Island), I thought they were interesting.

Yoshida: When you read Kataoka-san’s novels about motorcycles, you start to want to ride one. They say the wind smells different on a motorcycle, right?

Matsumoto: Do you go to Tanzawa in your car?

Yoshida: I’ve never been to Tanzawa.

Matsumoto: I was going there quite often about 3 years ago, Tanzawa is fun.

Yoshida: But aren’t mountain roads scary if you’re not used to them?

Matsumoto: They are. When you go there in winter, the road suddenly freezes and all. Those roads are in forests, after all.

Yoshida: Oh, so there’s that kind of roads there.

Matsumoto: At first, I bought a 50 cc off-road on impulse, and went to Tanzawa with that. In the middle of the night (laughs).

Yoshida: In the middle of the night!

Matsumoto: I am a weirdo, aren’t I (laughs). The off-road part starts after climbing to the top of the mountain. But the thing is, by the time you reach the top, the motorcycle overheats (laughs). So, I stopped right there. The lights had gone out of sight, and it was pitch black. It’s a forest road, so there are no vehicles passing by. The moon was blindingly shining, and I was thinking to myself, “wait, weren’t there bears on Tanzawa?”.

Yoshida: Were you not afraid? When your engine didn’t work?

Matsumoto: Of course I was. My engine was not running no matter what I did. But it was my first time riding so it was fun, so there was nothing to be done.

Yoshida: I see. It’s like a toy, isn’t it? I was also scared. When I went to Hakone, I thought that mountain roads were super scary. You can’t tell what lies ahead. And everyone’s using their high beams. When you turn on curves, the lights flash directly in your eyes, and you can’t see the center line (laughs). When I was turning at the curves, I was making sounds with my tires (laughs). That was so scary.

Matsumoto: How many years have it been since you got your driver’s license?

Yoshida: Not years, it’s just been a couple of months (laughs).

Matsumoto: Okay, that’d be scary then. The first two years are dangerous.

Yoshida: Yeah, then you get used to it.

Matsumoto: Yes, real big accidents happen after 5 years pass. And after 10 years, pretty much nothing happens. I got my driver’s license when I was 18. It was pretty terrible until I turned 20. I was driving 100 km/h in Shonan on a rainy day and I did a spin, I thought I’d die that day.

Matsumoto: You have a manga called “Kawa yori mo Nagaku, Yuruyaka ni” (1). Is it still ongoing?

Yoshida: Yes, but I’m on a break right now.

Matsumoto: When I read it, I remember my boyhood days (laughs). Did you imagine it all?

Yoshida: No. Part of it is made-up though. Of course, I have listened to stories of my male friends who went to all-boys schools too.

Matsumoto: Ah, I see.

Yoshida: But if you ask Shibuya Youichi-san (2), it’s “a story about an all-girls high school disguised as an all-boys high school”. When I stopped and thought about it, I said maybe he could be right. For starters, I am a woman, so I don’t know the world of men. I’ve always been worried that I was merely reflecting their world as seen by the eyes of a woman. But I also think that boys and girls are not much different in that regard, during those years of life.

Matsumoto: Yes, they aren’t much different. What I write are mostly songs for men, aren’t they (laughs)? They tell me I really understand women’s feelings, that’s really embarrassing (laughs). What I’m doing is also only changing the pronouns.

Yoshida: The essence of it all doesn’t really change.

Matsumoto: When I was in high school, our school trip was really fun, because I was in an all-boys school. When we arrived, junior college students from Tokyo were staying at the inn next door. So we sneaked out through the bath while holding our shoes, and followed the river.

Yoshida: To peep on them?

Matsumoto: Not to peep on them, but to hang out with them (laughs). When you pass the bridge, you wave your hands, right? Someone yelled “We are going out to play!”, and we just slipped out, but there was no one in the room that was our target (laughs). Then someone said, “let’s check the neighboring room!”, and then we went to a completely unrelated room. We hit it off with them, and went to a bar. We did some cheek-to-cheek dance, and returned (laughs). I have lots of heroic tales like that. And then, you also have to have a smoke. If we smoked at a café, we would be found out right away because our teacher was doing the rounds. We said that would be too dumb, so where do you think we went?

Yoshida: Huh, no? Where did you go?

Matsumoto: We went inside a beauty parlor.

Yoshida: A beauty parlor?

Matsumoto: We had our hairs washed, and we smoked all the while.

Yoshida: Just because you wanted to smoke?

Matsumoto: We also did a tour of all-girls high schools’ cultural festivals (laughs). I did festival hopping with my friends.

Yoshida: We went to other schools’ festivals a lot too.

Matsumoto: We each had a quota, and you were required to get an invitation to such-and-such school’s festival. That’s how it worked. Everyone got invitations for one or two festivals, and when we got together as a group of 3-4 guys, we could pretty much cover everything. There were popular schools.

Yoshida: Like ones who has the cutest girls (laughs)? Right, that must be the reason why pick those (laughs).

Matsumoto: Yes (laughs)!

Yoshida: Guys from my school too went to all-girls schools’ festivals a lot. They said stuff like the girls of co-ed schools were no good. We wouldn’t let them back into the class after saying things like that (laughs).

Matsumoto: Co-ed schools are much more interesting, right?

Yoshida: Yes, it was so much fun. Ours was a metropolitan high school, so we didn’t have a uniform. It felt more like a university. You could even go to cafés dressed like that.

Matsumoto: When our classes ended early and we wanted to ask friends from other classes out, we used to yell out the name of the jazz café at Jiyuugaoka in the hallway (laughs). The others were still in class, mind you (laughs). “We’re waiting for you there!” (laughs). And they would get the message.

Yoshida: That brings back memories. Speaking of Jiyuugaoka, when I was commuting to school back in elementary school, on my way back, don’t forget I was in elementary school, I got off the train there and went into cafés (laughs).

Matsumoto: How scary (laughs).

Yoshida: Now that I think about it, it is indeed scary. But I still did it. Of course, I didn’t smoke.

Matsumoto: But of course (laughs)!

— Did you just walk in and drink coffee or something?

Yoshida: Yes, like on the second floor of the building facing Peacock. Or like Mont Blanc. Imagine 5-6 elementary school students going in as a pack, and ordering coffee or black tea…

—How old were you then?

Yoshida: I was in the 6th grade of elementary school. Well, you should be scared of city girls (laughs).

Matsumoto: Yes, you should (laughs). When I was in junior high, we had short pants for our uniforms.

Yoshida: Oh, really?

Matsumoto: I believe it is abolished now. So, when we wore coats in winter, we looked so pitiful (laughs).

Yoshida: I think I somehow understand that.

Matsumoto: And my grandma still asks me what's with me showing my legs (laughs). And when I tell her the reason why, she gets angry.

Yoshida: Why does she get angry?

Matsumoto: I wonder why… Short pants are weird, I guess. They might look rebellious to her (laughs). Anyway, they are lame. They weren’t even shorts, they were right above your knees.

Yoshida: They give an impression of Britain’s public schools.

Matsumoto: Yes, but from the first year of junior high and onward, everyone has hairy legs (laughs). That wasn’t a nice sight to behold. Everyone only wore them seriously for 6 months or so at first. In high school, we had a uniform with a stand-up collar.

Yoshida: Many different styles were in fashion back then, weren’t they?

Matsumoto: They were frying hats on frying pans (laughs), and flattening them.

Yoshida: Carrying slim bags were so popular, we were flattening our bags with all out might. We did all sorts of stuff.

A manga that has won the 29th Shogakukan Manga Award. Published in Petit Flower and June between 1983 and 1985. Taking place in a city modeled after the military base city Fussa, it is the realistic and comedic story that portrays the life of a high school boy. ↩︎

Born in Tokyo in 1951. A music critic. An editor. Founder of rockin’on Corp. His works include “Rock Best Album Selection”, “Rock Bibunhou” (Rock Differentiation). ↩︎