After more than a month, I finally caught a glimpse of ToshoSen author Hiro Arikawa’s interview in NHK’s Top Runner (this is actually the 3rd rerun already, the 1st and 2nd of which was way back September), thanks to the power of live Japanese TV streaming! Rawr! But one thing I realized after watching this is that my listening skill is still sucky, in the “I’m still likely to fail the JLPT1 listening section” sense. I don’t think I even got 50% of what they said >.> But since no one has bothered ripping this particular Top Runner episode (and I don’t think I’ve seen a detailed ‘report’ about it in Japanese blogs either), I’m pretty much left with no choice but to rely on the measly ‘notes’ I gathered as I was watching T__T;

By the time Top Runner started, I was still tweaking my PC so I can take snapshots of what I was streaming, hence I wasn’t paying much attention to the first few minutes of the interview. Though I did manage to catch a few things, with Arikawa-san sharing how she came up with the decision to become a novelist, something along the lines of the impact that novel has (details of which got lost in transmission because I wasn’t focusing, though I’m not really sure whether actually “focusing” would’ve made a difference orz).

The screenshot above gives away Hiro Arikawa’s gender without a question, and I can just wonder if people still don’t know that the great TS author is a woman. Arikawa-san is usually mistaken as a guy, as she said so herself, and true enough, that’s what I also thought when I first heard about ToshoSen, given its shounen-ish nature and all. People she know fondly address her as “Hiro-chan”, but when other people see her pen-name “Hiro” in kanji (浩), they usually mistake this to be Hiroshi (the same kanji read differently), a guy’s name.

Asked how she was able to conceive her masterpiece Toshokan Sensou (yes, it’s now legendary so go read it!), Arikawa-san narrates this story of how her hubby showed her the library plaque, from which the ToshoSen idea came about. Then she goes about explaining how the characters were borne out of her [creative] mind — the ‘camera’ through which she perceives how the character are going to act, and how the overall story is going to turn out. (And I sort of realized how much I fail in reading the Toshokan Sensou novels because they’re not quite “moving” the way they should inside my head, thanks to my limited Japanese knowledge orz)

Arikawa-sensei also mentioned about Tezuka, and how she finds him to be the most unpredictable character among the cast, whose most surprising ‘development’ (or sudden change in character?) was when his brother came into the picture (please please please if you’ve seen this episode of Top Runner, kindly help fill-in the details for me… 有川浩先生のインタビューを見たことある人、どうかご協力ください！).

Ok, it seems there’s a Japanese blogger who mentioned more details about this (本当に助かった！). Basically, Arikawa-san was talking about how certain characters in her story get out of control, like Tezuka, especially in the second volume where his family background was shown. Then this whole plot idea involving Tezuka’s brother sprung out of nowhere (since it wasn’t in her initial plans), and Arikawa even thought of telling Tezuka “Oh geez, couldn’t you have told me about this [family background] earlier?! I have my own problems too, you know!” (Whew, glad I managed to find that Japanese blog post!)

Then in the middle of the interview, a Doujou– I mean his seiyuu, Tomoaki Maeno, appears!! I went all “kyaa! Doujou教官!” the moment he entered the scene because it was totally unexpected! He reads some of Doujou’s lines from the novel while walking down the stairs of this library-like building(?) — the fateful place where Iku and Doujou first met, according to the caption. He was reading the portion of the first novel which shows us Doujou’s side of the ‘Iku’s heroic act / prince charming’ story, how Iku’s courage inspired him to stand up against the MBA even though he’s just a level 1 officer himself — the reason why he got interrogated by the old chaps in the Library Task Force (refer to episode 7 or 8).

Tomoaki Maeno was made to say something Doujou-esque from Toshokan Sensou, and of course, he decides to do the classic line 「アホか貴様ッ」(Aho ka kisama! – Are you stupid?!) that he often tells Iku Seeing him do it live was just amazing! Now according to Maeno, Doujou’s role proved to be a real challenge because he had to deliver his lines in a powerful (well modulated?) manner, to set the tone of the whole war/conflict mood of the series as well. I can only imagine the pressure he must’ve faced to deliver the lines of tsuntsun Doujou

According to Arikawa-sensei, the moment he heard Maeno’s voice from his audition tape, she immediately exclaimed “This is it!”, and decided that no one else is better suited to play Doujou’s role than him. Side comment: I find it great that Arikawa-sensei had a hand in the behind-the-scenes production of the ToshoSen series. Knowing well that the anime had the author’s approval = WIN. Much of what I said in my “objective” review of the series is based on what Arikawa-sensei said in this blog entry, where she takes much pride in all the adaptations of her work ^^

Later on in the interview, Arikawa-san shares that she develops her novels in such a way that it will live up to the expectations of her readers (Aww…), and I guess this is one of the primary reasons behind the popularity of her works It was also sweet knowing that Arikawa-san’s hubby (together with other friends) is like her pillar of support in terms of writing. She fondly calls her husband her “external hard-disk” because of how he keeps track of the writing ideas that pops our of her mind every now and then (Totally awww). What an ideal couple they are Her husband seems to be her constant source of inspiration in writing, considering that she bagged awards year after year after her big debut, which was after she got married ^^

The latter part of the show focused on Hiro Arikawa’s other works, including her most recent novel Hankyuu Densha, and some Q&A session which I don’t really think you guys would be interested in anymore (not that I have much of the details about it anyways ).

…so yeah, there goes my epic fail report on Hiro Arikawa’s Top Runner interview! Hurray! *facepalm* Well I hope you guys enjoyed reading nonetheless ^^;

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