At the Angoulême comics festival, to attend a masterclass by Hajime Isayama, the creator of The attack of the TitansIt took a lot of patience. In front of the Théâtre d’Angoulême, where the meeting took place last Saturday, fans waved signs to obtain the invitations.
“We were afraid of not having places, we ‘updated’ the site to register, for 40 minutes”, confess Ophélie and Estelle, two fans.
Many were not so lucky. Completed in a few hours, this master class was one of the rare public interventions by the mangaka, who confided in his desire to leave the manga to open a sauna. This meeting headed by Fausto Fasulo, artistic co-director of the Angoulême comics festival, was one of the highlights of the fiftieth edition of the festival with the exhibition dedicated to The attack of the Titans and Hajime Isayama’s autograph session, also complete and subject to a gauge system.
Measures taken by the festival to avoid overflows. Only 15,000 fans of shingeki no kyojin (SnK) were able to visit the exhibition. “We didn’t want a queue of two or three hours,” says Franck Bondoux, the festival’s general manager. “It is indecent for the public. These are not the right conditions to visit the exhibition. And for the author, it is disrespectful.”
Respect was everywhere on Saturday morning during Hajime Isayama’s master class. In an almost religious silence, the lovers of SnK He drank in the words of the Japanese author and followed Fausto Fasulo’s instructions to the letter: no photos or videos. “Keep memories,” she asked the audience.
Penetrate artistic intimacy
Stating that the meeting had been prepared in advance with Hajime Isayama, the journalist added that it would not address “points of detail of the series”, but “the working method” of the mangaka: “how he created this universe, what was “. the daily life of him as a mangaka, [pour nous] penetrate this artistic intimacy of which we know little, [car] Mangakas work discreetly, even secretly.”
The first question addresses precisely this loneliness of mangakas. Did you feel the same isolation as your characters while working on your manga? “The universe of The attack of the Titans It’s a lot like my universe,” he replies. “During the series, my role has evolved, like the characters. I have often identified with the characters in The attack of the Titans. For example, in the end, Eren has to take on the Titan’s powers. He was a bit like me. I had to accept the importance of my work.”
On the international success of this work, Hajime Isayama is more evasive: “I am often asked this question,” he says, before continuing: “What I am saying can happen at any time and in any country. You can identify with the characters in this universe. That’s why this work has been so well received everywhere.”
Isayama measured the extent of this success when the anime aired in 2013. But for him, this success has meant great suffering, linked to pressure from fans. “It was quite difficult, especially at the end,” he reveals. “The pressure weighed on me. I no longer felt capable of carrying such a weight on my own. Assume.”
Reluctant to talk about the movies and manga he’s been devouring since the end of The attack of the Titans (“I recently saw Smile on the plane. It wasn’t interesting”), Hajime Isayama was more generous with his influences. The mangaka returned in detail to the work of Kiyoshi Yamashita (1922-1971) whose painting kaiju inspired “Le Grand Terrassement”, one of the defining moments of SnK.
“At home there was an art book by this painter. I remember that I was very afraid every time I looked at these paintings. He always painted about the fear of war. He did not think about his work while doing it. SnK, but once I finished the last chapter, I realized that ‘Le Grand Terrassement’ came from this painting. There’s the same sense of despair there.”
Among his other inspirations, Hajime Isayama mentions game of Thrones. The irony of the fantastic series inspired him for his dialogues. The mangaka also cites the miniseries. see men (from the comic by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons) and the movie District 9 (2009) by Neill Blomkamp, which portrays a cohabitation between humans and aliens in a South African ghetto.
“Cornered” by work
Without giving the keys to reading his work, Hajime Isayama repeatedly half-explains his difficulty in conceiving SnK. During the twelve years of the manga’s creation, he did not dare to entrust his doubts to his assistants. I spoke very little about The attack of the Titans and its content with my assistants”, he reveals. “I was too intimidated to talk about it. We were talking more about nonsense, movies, etc.”
Hajime Isayama was surrounded by twelve or even fifteen assistants to The attack of the Titans. They worked in rotation, a few days a month, so that Isayama had a maximum of four assistants per work session, when he found himself “cornered” by work. “So it was a bit like a war between me and my assistants,” the mangaka laughs.
He also had to coach them on his style: “I didn’t know how to explain to my assistants. I was unpredictable. We were groping, searching, talking about things, thinking that the design of Murderer of demons was nice. We were talking about that kind of thing.” A projected video confirms the studious atmosphere. Another also shows them playing tetris “It wasn’t always easy to free up time to do it.”
“Improve my drawing”
Isayama reveals to have had a fairly strong relationship with his editorial director, especially in regards to the storyboards. “At first, I rebelled quite often. But when I read it again, I thought he was right. These discussions were a bit complicated, but as time went on, it got better and better.”
Hajime Isayama defended his style, often considered sloppy, even amateurish. “My editorial manager told me on several occasions that I had to improve my drawing. He told me some harsh things. He knew it was very difficult to improve myself. I defended my work saying that my ‘rough’ style was charming.”
However, as his work progressed, its technical deficiencies made it complex. Quickly, he realized that he had to get better. Ryōji Minagawa, the author ofARMS, then offered him valuable advice, such as “better work on onomatopoeia”. “It helped me a lot,” she says now. “I improved my drawings a lot.” A statement warmly applauded by the assembly.
This particular feature was praised by the fans who had the opportunity to visit the exhibition: “I stayed for 1h15 to get a good look at everything”, enthuses Yan, a fan who came from Concarneau. “We are captivated by the blackboards. We notice the level of precision of the details of the blackboards and the evolution of their style. The level of detail is impressive. We don’t notice it in the paper version!”
“Many Regrets”
The mangaka is still embarrassed by certain sequences in his manga and would like to change them. “I often ask myself this question,” he says. In particular, Isayama would like to change a line from Armin to “improve comprehension” of a chapter. And he would like Eren’s transformation into a titan, at the beginning of the manga, to be less abrupt. “I really regret this guy.”
Isayama assumes it, his scenario has been modified many times. “The main lines of the story were followed, but there was a bit of improvisation. That’s how the story got longer than expected.” often bored by SnKrepeatedly wanted to stop to draw something else. The transition that he made in volume 21, with the arrival of the Mahrs, allowed him to be reborn artistically: “I felt enormous pleasure, which I had not felt before. It was another job.”
now that The attack of the Titans is over, Hajime Isayama does not have a new manga planned. He plans to pick up his brushes: “It hasn’t been announced yet. But it’s a matter of me doing something of 8 or 16 pages. I do not assure you of success, but thanks to his applause, I will do my best ”, He concluded.
The match captivated the fans. “I loved seeing Isayama by our side to tell what he was doing in detail,” reacts Kevin, a fan. “Very happy to know that he is going to start drawing for us again.” “I would have liked to go deeper into the manga universe, but overall I’m happy, it was very interesting,” adds another fan, Gaïa. “It was a pretty unique moment.”
Source: BFM TV
