- Interview Date: 7/3/2025
- Interview Format: One-on-One, In Person
Anime Herald: What is your origin story? How did you become a mangaka?
Shinobu Seguchi: I already loved drawing, and I loved reading manga. I started copying my favorite manga art. After doing that for several books, I realized it had become a form of expression for me. It felt great. The appeal of it led to my desire to become a mangaka growing stronger. That’s how I became a mangaka.
Anime Herald: Who were the mangaka that inspired you?
Shinobu Seguchi: The ones that come immediately to mind are the legends. The god of manga Osamu Tezuka. Kazuo Umezu, the author of Makoto-chan. Fujiko Fujio. Of course, I read other manga, but those were the ones that definitely inspired me.
Anime Herald: Did you go to school for art?
Shinobu Seguchi: Through high school, I took the general courses. I went to an art school for college. I majored in sculpture. I never specifically studied how to draw, or draw manga. I was constantly carving out stone.
Anime Herald: Did you ever sculpt professionally or sell any sculpture?
Shinobu Seguchi: Never. As a student, I wanted to be a sculptor. It was a student thing.
Anime Herald: In that case, I am very glad you learned how to draw as well.
Shinobu Seguchi: (Laughs)
Anime Herald: How is it different to draw someone else’s story versus drawing your own?
Shinobu Seguchi: There is a big difference. When you are going to draw someone else’s story, you already know that the story is good. It’s interesting and successful. When you are working on your own work you have an idea of the story you want to tell, but success isn’t guaranteed. There’s always that anxiety, the worry, “What if this isn’t any good?” before releasing it.
Anime Herald: What was your initial reaction to the story of Oedo Fire Slayer?
Shinobu Seguchi: I knew they were looking for someone to adapt it into a manga. I had that understanding while I read it. While I was reading, I had the visuals come to me, one after another. It gave me a strong urge to draw. The manga artist hadn’t been decided yet. I knew that I didn’t want anyone else but myself to get the job. It was an intense inspiration.
Anime Herald: It is very unusual for an anime and a manga to be announced at the same time. Usually the manga already exists. What do you think led to both of them being announced so early?
Rei Hebiguchi: Making an anime from the novel was decided early on. Because manga is such a major market in Japan, it has strong marketing potential. They decided to have the audience enjoy both the manga and the anime at the same time. We can draw in fans through manga as well. Having the manga will help the anime succeed.
Anime Herald: That’s news. You decided to make the anime directly from seeing the story. What was so powerful about the story that you decided to turn it into an anime?
Shinobu Seguchi: You feel a tremendous amount of passion and heat from this story. It’s hard to describe in words. It sounds too simple. That’s why I want to express it through pictures and art. Just saying it doesn’t convey everything.
In the story, there’s a week where there’s a collective helping hand that helps them stand up together. When reading it, you feel the same thing. You want to lend a hand and stand up together. It’s very powerful and influential.
Anime Herald: A few years ago I interviewed the team from Dr. Stone. They explained how they had to go on site and do research. Have you had to do that?
Shinobu Seguchi: There’s a firefighting museum in Tokyo. They preserve the Edo period clothing and tools. They have documents that talk about how it was back then. There is also a place where you can see how the Edo period cities were structured. The dioramas. But we couldn’t actually research a fire scene.
However, coincidentally, I was once near an actual fire. I have visited that memory. But other than that, there is no on site fieldwork. It was more gathering information and structuring off of it.
Anime Herald: Thinking back to your trip to the museum, do you remember learning anything that impressed or surprised you?
Shinobu Seguchi: I had actually researched this subject twenty years ago for a different project. For this project there were no real surprises. It was more a matter of revisiting and imagining the character using and moving around with the tools I saw in front of me.
Anime Herald: What were you researching twenty years ago?
Shinobu Seguchi: I researched the Edo period.
Anime Herald: (To editor Rei Hebichuchi) What is your origin story?
Rei Hebiguchi: I realized pretty early on what the term “editor” meant in the manga world. A lot of kids only acknowledge mangaka, or perhaps the writers and the artists. They don’t think about editors. But early on, I realized that the font from Detective Conan was consistent. Then, I saw Jojo, where there were so many different kinds of fonts in the artwork. I realized that someone had to be deciding on these fonts. That’s how I learned that there were editors who supported mangaka behind the scenes with the art.
I also loved drawing. I thought that I wasn’t good enough at art to become a manga artist, so I wanted to support them. That’s when I was in elementary school.
Anime Herald: What were you most looking forward to for your trip here to Los Angeles?
Shinobu Seguchi: Definitely this event. Being a panelist and doing interviews. You get to have so many people listen to your story, and you get to meet people. That has been very exciting.
Anime Herald: Anything outside of the convention itself?
Shinobu Seguchi: We’ve been trying to figure out where to go.
Anime Herald: What do you like?
Shinobu Seguchi: I’ve been drawing up until the last moment before I flew out here. My brain isn’t in a clear space to figure out what to do outside of the convention.
Do you have any recommendations where to find interesting things for souvenirs?
Anime Herald: The Last Bookstore.
Shinobu Seguchi: We will check it out. I like that recommendation.
Anime Herald: Switching gears, do you have any questions for us?
Shinobu Seguchi: This question involves the fan art that has been happening, perhaps more in the international world. What happened is some fans were coloring my work. They would color it and share it on social media. It’s about how people perceive or value the author and the artist, and the work itself. I’ve seen a difference between Japan and the Western world.
In Japan, if it’s that author’s work, it’s that author’s work. You don’t touch the art or modify the art and post it. That doesn’t happen. It’s like there’s a silent agreement where you don’t do that out of respect for the author and the work. But right now, what I am seeing from the Western fans, they still have a sense of respect. They love it so much that they’ll do fan art and cosplay.
It’s a very joyful thing, but at the same time there are moments that you feel like your own artwork has been invaded and touched. Sometimes, I appreciate it. But there are times where I say “I wish you didn’t do that” and they’ll fight back at you. I am wondering if that’s an individual person’s value, or is it a cultural thing. Right now we can’t tell if it’s the culture, or just individual people.
What we hope is that the same respect afforded to the authors and the work would be similar to Japan. We would like that sense of respect to spread and would appreciate it if the media could share that. To have the press share “Hey, this is what it should be.”
Anime Herald: I want to divide this into two different types. There is something that a fan creates on their own. It can be cosplay where they create their own costume or outfit. Or they can take a character you’ve created and draw it in their own way. That’s something I’d expect artists to be very protective. Yes, the character already existed, but they’ve created their own version of it. That is culturally accepted.
But it is different if they take something that you drew and start modifying it. That’s something that we in the West will acknowledge as bad.
Shinobu Seguchi: Do you think that is mostly in America, or would it be the same in Europe?
Anime Herald: I have attended conventions in America and Canada, but I haven’t been to one in Europe yet.
Shinobu Seguchi: The incident happened in France. What happened is that the person referred to themselves as a “colorist.” They didn’t officially buy the rights to the artwork. They downloaded a pirate version, they colored it, and they posted it on social media. What they said is “that genre exists.” It was shocking to me.
(Editor’s note: We did a little digging and this is what we heard back from someone with knowledge of the subject in France. I will post their thoughts in full, below)
Hey !
Not At all. The law about author rights is very clear. There is exceptions about author rights only for Familial and private use
If you add any educational or journalistic value to the art
If you parody (which is not the case here)
If the reproducer is disabled
If the reproduction is aimed for a museum or a gallery (not a convention for example)
If you’re talking about the French colorist that republished on twitter and got thousands of answers, because of how the original illustrator answered. I came across the exchange and the problem was that the original illustrator was perceived as extremely aggressive in his answers if I recall correctly to a point that everyone started to side with the colorist.
If you add on top of that the difference between the Japanese and French towards rights usage (you knew the Japanese are very VERY pain in the ass about it) it’s getting complicated
So it’s a bit tricky. On paper you can’t color and publish an artwork that isn’t yours. But you can parody it.
If I recall correctly the guy just wanted to show his work and not make any money out of it. He just wanted to show an art that he was a big fan about it with his work. Which is illegal, of course but not in intention to make money out of this art. But because the tightness of the Japanese rights was shown in public, people got angry and it backlashed.
So technically, Japan would have won the court of law but France would have won the court of public opinion)
Shinobu Seguchi: It would be nice for the world to understand how manga can be enjoyed by everyone, universally. It is an understanding I would like the media to help spread to the world.
Anime Herald: I will try to get people to be respectful to manga and its creators. Thank you very much.
Shinobu Seguchi: Thank you.
Shinobu Seguchi Talks Oedo Fire Slayer at Anime Expo 2025 – Seth Burn