2021 interview of Kentarou Miura & Shizuya Wazarai (Cestvs)

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This interview took place to promote the animated adaptation of Cestvs, a gladiator-themed manga published in Young Animal. It was published on April 10, 2021. It involves Miura because he and Wazarai are friends, former schoolmates, and Wazarai was once his assistant.

The original article (in Japanese) can be accessed here. The picture shows Wazarai.

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◇ Wazarai Shizuya is a man with a scholarly turn of mind and a stoic demeanor.

ーDo you see each other often ?

Miura: It's been around 15-20 years (since we last met)?

Wazarai: Is that so? I think it's been less than 20 years.

Miura: It’s because (Wazarai-san) doesn't have a mobile phone nor uses email.

Wazarai: I don't want to invite distractions. (I'm) the same as in the old days. I communicate with the editor on a landline telephone.

Miura:  He's stoic. A man with a scholarly turn of mind who performs one work  for years. He doesn't even show up for New Year parties. It's  incredible.

Wazarai: Then, maybe I'll continue like this!

ーWazarai-san used to be an assistant for Miura-san.

Miura: Wazarai-kun, did you decide to be a mangaka when you were a university student?

Wazarai:  It was before I graduated. I majored in industrial design in university  but many things happened, including my failure to get a job, which led  me to lose interest in design. I became interested in creating a story.  Half of it was to draw people's interest. I was desperate.

Miura:  When I suffered from having no staff as I got to do "Ôrôden", written  by Buronson-san, I clingingly asked him (to be my assistant). He helped  me around until the hundred men fight in "Berserk".

Wazarai:  I was his assistant for about five years. At first I was the only  assistant. He and I worked together at his home. The two of us did about  60 pages per episode.

Miura: True,  we did! Getting up in the morning, I saw Wazarai-kun groaning and the  cat sleeping on him *laughs*. When MTV started, we two went to a room  with a TV and watched a lot of it. CDs didn't exist, so I used a red  double cassette deck that I'd gotten when I received a prize.

Wazarai: Both of us were cornered. While working as his assistant, I also drew my own manga.

Miura:  It's because I lacked common sense about manga at first. After that I  had more assistants, but only Wazarai-kun had an excellent ability. It  was my first time and it was a carnage. Thinking back, those were hard  times.

－Did you draw manga when you were in high school?

Wazarai:  I was in the art department in my high school but I didn't draw (manga)  at all at that time. In my high school class, there was a group for  manga lovers but I didn't join it.

Miura:  Wazarai-kun was a top student. Our teachers had expectations for him.  It was thought that he would do well in industrial design.

Wazarai: He (Miura) was the only one among the members of the manga lovers group to win a prize. He stood out.

Miura:  Soda Masahito-kun, the author of "Daigo of Fire Company M", was in the  grade below us. Many mangaka were gathered (in our school). It's  strange.

Wazarai: The art department was closed down not long after we graduated.

◇ The high-density level of "Cestvs" and "Berserk"

－The drawing density is high in both of "Cestvs" and "Berserk".

Miura:  Many of the manga that I yearned for in the 1980s and 90s were  high-density. I yearned for such manga like "AKIRA" and "Hokuto no Ken".  However, "Cestvs" is awesome as well. Each time there's a new place and  an aerial shot of Rome. His efforts are amazing. The drawing, the drama  and the action, all of them are powerful.

Wazarai: You say so, hmmm?     [Note: He's implying Miura's own work is greater than his]

Miura:  For my work, the balance is distorted. While my protagonist becomes a  mountain at the edge (of the story), becomes faded, in Wazarai-kun's  work (characters) are drawn firmly in place even when the camera moves.  It's an epic drama, a multiprotagonist story indeed. I don't think  there's another mangaka like him today. He doesn't draw to create  popular characters but to draw life realistically.

－It has been going for more than 20 years. It's a thorny path.

Wazarai: Yes…

Miura:  He was like that from the beginning. His drawing skills were already  great when he won the prize. Talking like this, we transcend time.

Wazarai: There's no changes in a mangaka's life. I'd say that ten years is like one day.

Miura: Wazarai-kun, you don't want to draw another manga?

Wazarai:  I don't have anything that has been fully formed. I've failed to set my  concepts into a good-enough shape to drive me to draw a manga.

Miura: Are you more interested in deepening "Cestvs"?

Wazarai: Since I started it, I should finish it.

Miura: That's your personality. As for me, I'm a bit distracted. I also want to do other things.

Wazarai: Hey, "Berserk" is 30 years old! It's stunning.

－What do you expect from the animation of "Cestvs"?

Wazarai: I hope it will be attractive, since it's an animation. I'm looking forward to it.

Miura:  In "Cestvs" and "Brass Knuckle", the sensitivity of Wazarai-kun is  always suitable for the world. Foreigners can also enjoy his manga. He's  the one who can draw foreigners in the coolest way among Japanese  mangaka. I think he'll receive more attention from overseas countries  (than from Japan).