My Hero Academia and Kagurabachi Authors Discuss Why Weekly Shonen Jump Is the Budokan for Manga Artists and Why the Final Four Pages Matter

What They Keep in Mind When Drawing for Weekly Shonen Jump

――What do you keep in mind when you serialize in Weekly Shonen Jump?

Horikoshi
This applies not only to Jump but to all weekly series. The final four pages of a chapter are the most important. I think it all comes down to how much you can move the reader’s emotions in those last four pages. If you read Jump on Monday, there are chapters you still remember over the weekend and chapters you do not. I think that difference is determined by how strong the impact of those final four pages is.

Hokazono
I try to make sure there is at least one point in every chapter that makes readers happy or excited. It could be a hopeless situation, a completely unexpected turn of events, or something that simply gives them a good feeling. Even if it just becomes something they talk about with friends, I think it is better if there is at least one moment that makes them think, I am glad I read this.

How They Work to Improve Their Art

――What do you consciously do to improve your drawing ability?

Hokazono
I try to question myself every time I draw. I keep doubting whether my art is really that good as I work. By doing that, I train my eye and make it more critical.

Horikoshi
He is already doing something I only realized in the fifth or sixth year of drawing My Hero Academia. I am the same way now. The longer you keep serializing, the more you start to feel unsure about things like, Is the way this hand is moving actually correct. As your eye becomes more discerning, the drawings you used to do on instinct start to feel off.

Also, the creators before us left behind so many incredible works, so I study those. To give a concrete example, Naruto is outstanding when it comes to constructing space on the page. I am always amazed, thinking, So this is how you draw it, as I look at Naruto and imagine how a scene would look if it were shot with an ultra wide angle lens.

Hokazono
Naruto hardly uses screentone and there are not many lines on the page either. Yet despite being drawn with so few lines, the pages never look cheap. It makes me wonder how precise those lines must be. I tend to rely on little tricks like using solid blacks or cross hatching to express light, so I feel like if I tried to draw like Kishimoto sensei, my pages would suddenly look very plain.

Learning From Other Works

――So you both study other series too.

Hokazono
Of course. I look at many different works, but especially Naruto and My Hero Academia.

Horikoshi
Same here. Naruto and Kagurabachi.

Source : ORICON NEWS