Making a living with hand-drawn anime
Manga artist Leiji Matsumoto’s “Space Battleship Yamato Regeneration Technique”
Manga artist Leiji Matsumoto is madly devoted to the world of anime. Find out about his obsession with the sci-fi adventure Space Battleship Yamato and the contents of the work.
“People often ask me how I’m not going crazy. After all, it takes 24 frames to make one second of film, which is ten times the effort of a single picture. So my income has become one-tenth of what it used to be.”
What makes Leiji Matsumoto lament this is the animation production of the sci-fi adventure Space Battleship Yamato, which will be broadcast on Nippon TV from October 6th (Sunday nights 7:30-8:00). Space Battleship Yamato is modeled after the former battleship Yamato, and as the name suggests, it takes place in space.
“We put a lot of time and effort into creating the illustrations to give it a realistic sense of realism, so we worked every day without a break even during the height of summer. All the staff had beards that grew out of control, and their eyes were droopy, so it was a strange atmosphere,” says Matsumoto.
There was also a point where a young foreign girl, who worked part-time at a bakery near the studio, quit because she found it so creepy.
The story is set in the year 2199, when Earth is attacked by radioactive contamination from the planet Gamilas in the Magellanic Nebula, putting humanity at risk of extinction. At this point, the space battleship is sent out to fight.
A man’s romance in space
By the way, Leiji Matsumoto is a popular author famous for his series of manga such as Otoko Oidon and Seibon Den, in which a type of mushroom called “salmatake” grows on the dirty pants of a single man. His style is quite different in this, since he originally debuted with science-fiction manga.
Still, the reason he is so obsessed with the world of anime is because “I love the romance of men like Vasco da Gama and Columbus. I wanted to replace the sea with space and entrust my dreams to the adventures and romance of the protagonists,” he says.
Yomiuri TV producer Mr. Sano said, “Mr. Matsumoto’s work was brought to us, and when we saw it, it looked like a full-fledged anime. At one time, anime was at its peak, but it was inefficient compared to the time and effort it took, and now it has settled down to about 11 titles. Of these, Mr. Matsumoto’s anime is outstanding.”
As expected of his passion, the pre-release reviews seem to be excellent.