Remember that interview with Bow Ditama I posted a while back? Well, I was able to contact someone who was willing to translate parts of it. Here are the excerpts that he translated. Note that his syntax was less than perfect and there were random letters placed sporadically, so I've cleaned it up as I transcribed it here. The questions are from the editor and the answers are from Ditama. Note that these aren't consecutive; as he didn't want to translate the whole thing, I ran a Babelfish translation and chose excerpts that looked like they might be the most fruitful.
Q: So, tell me why you chose to draw Mahoromatic.
A: Well, in '97 I went to an anime event with a couple of my manga-writer pals and while we were going back, one of them offered us to go to a meeting. So I went and chatted a little, and afterwards, another guy offered us to go see the recording of an anime radio show starring a famous voice actor back in the day. So we asked everyone if they wanted to come, and of course, everyone came (laughs). That's when I first met the guy who was about to start the Mahoro-project (since the project didn't get established until way later). About a few weeks later, I got a call from the guy saying there's a funny story that we want you to draw, and luckily for me I was looking for new things to draw, since the manga I was drawing before ended around that time. I was relieved to hear that the original book had only 18 stories, so I took the job. But after I started, I got a call saying that it was extended and I was like, "Oh, jeez."
Q: What did you find challenging about drawing this manga?
A: Well, it was really hard because I didn't know anything about the story at first, and I didn't know how to convert original stories. When I say this, it means I didn't know how to add my style into the story. I could've just drawn the manga 100% according to Nakayama-sensei, but that would be too boring. For example, when there's the scene where Mahoro takes a nap and a chick comes out and cries "Chirp chirp." That was my idea, but when I actually drew it I was like "This is OK, right?" (laughs)
Q: So this problem was solved after a while?
A: Yeah, but since I'm the manga-writer I do have a say in "maybe it should be like this", or something like that. Changing the setting just a bit, not too much though. But to tell you the truth, it's just a way to cut off planning time.
Q: So from what I heard just now, Minawa-chan didn't exist from the beginning?
A: I think it was in volume 3 or something, I heard that there will be a younger sister-ish kinda character coming soon, so after the meeting I drew her. That's it.
Q: What did you concentrate on most when drawing?
A: Well, I wasn't thinking too hard when drawing, but before I had heard that my art style was really shoujo-style, so while trying to be close to the main style and story I tried drawing this in a shounen-style.
Q: What do you think is important in shoujo-style drawing?
A: I think it's important to not use too much tone and use other methods to show effects and stuff, but I think manga these days is using a lot of tones. While drawing this manga, I was reading other manga to learn other styles of showing effects. But in this manga, there was a fighting scene in it, so I did have to put shounen-style manga effects, but the actual drawing seemed endless. I think it was in the first volume on page 32, no one including the assistants knew how to draw a bus so we were in big trouble there.
Q: By the time volume one [of the tankobon, I'm assuming] came out you were drawing magazine covers and there was a fuss about the Mahoro anime. Were you under pressure?
A: Hell yes! I didn't believe in the anime adaptation of Mahoro until Gainax showed me an example of the Mahoro anime designs and such. When I saw it, it was of really good quality so I was like, "Just go with this!"
Well, that's all he translated for me. For me, the most interesting thing that I learned from this is that the nap-time chicks were Ditama's idea, so I guess that solves the question of whether there's any real meaning behind them. Another point of interest is that Nakayama and Ditama didn't really know each other that well ahead of time, and that Ditama accepted without really knowing what the project was. That seems to oddly parallel the fact that Gainax chose to animate it without knowing much about it either.
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