The Queen of Horror Manga, Kanako Inuki, brings you School Zone, a series about ordinary children who encounter the strange and terrifying at their very own school, and discover that many ghost stories, urban legends, and superstitions are truly and horribly real. We are pleased to bring you this interview with Inuki which was originally published in the Horror magazine Rue Morgue in June, 2006.
Q: Tell us about your background? Where are you from? Where did you develop your talents? How did you get into the male-dominated world of manga?
I was born in Hokkaido and moved to Tokyo when I was little. There was "Manga Rental" shop (basically, a 'pay-to-take-home-and-read' library) in my neighborhood, and I found myself going there all the time, and before I knew it, I'd read enough manga to consider myself a fan. I don't know why, but I was always drawn to the horror genre. I still have vivid impressions of scenes where girls were running away screaming from a mummified teacher, and those images stuck with me.
Gradually, I started to read broader range of Manga. Being a girl, and as is typical of girls in Japan, I found myself reading more romance manga, as well. That being said, however, my true passion toward horror manga never faded away, and I always kept the horror genre closest to me in terms of what I was reading.
I remember also constantly asking my parents to let me go see horror movies, as well. These movies were made with kids in mind, and featured lots of ghosts and other monsters that might make for a scary bedtime story; I didn't really watch much splatter-core. I loved these films, but sometimes they'd scare me so much that I couldn't sleep, or I'd have recurring nightmares about whatever I'd seen. I'd get fevers from lack of sleep, and wind up missing school. Needless to say, my parents told me to stop watching these movies.
But more so than my fear of the material, the question in burning inside me regarding these films was "why?" Why shouldn't I watch scary stuff? Why do scary things happen, and why did I get a rush from them? What happens to people when they die? These questions I harbored in myself from a very, very early age, and to be honest, these simple - yet intricate - things are still issues I think about.
My mother was a huge fan of Osamu Tezuka, and she let me read a lot of Manga. However, she was always strongly against me becoming a manga-ka for obvious reasons: Basically, it's really hard to become one, and up until recently, it wasn't the most socially noble profession. It's interesting to note that the two groups of people that have the hardest time getting apartments in Japan are foreigners, and those who claim 'manga-ka' on their lease application - especially aspiring ones. -MG] It might have been that influence, but I went to and graduated college and landed a job at your average corporation, and then I got married. Around the time I had my first child, the first serialized horror manga magazine was also born in Japan. When I was really young, horror manga had a short boom, but it was frowned upon socially, and it was basically 'banned' from an artistic/literary/class standpoint - one of the reasons cited by social scholars was that horror manga had a negative impact on childrens' education. Two decades later, Asahi Sonorama published their serialized horror magazine, which I suppose was a resurgence for the genre. When I got a hold of this magazine, something in me 'clicked'. I started working right away on my dojinshi, when acted as my outlet to draw horror manga. This drew the attention of an editor at Kodansha, which acted as my impetus to debut as a manga professional. As luck would have it, Kodansha started their own horror magazine a year later, and they let me do covers and would always allocate me some pages for horror shorts. This magazine became a hit, and sold quite a few copies. Following this and Sonorama's success, other companies followed suit and the horror genre began to boom. Magazines popped-up everywhere, and I got extremely busy with my work because of this. During this boom, I'd be busier than I could have ever imagined for the next 10 years! I was working on 5 to 7 different magazines, doing both cover art and interior art, as well as short pieces. This is how I became known as the 'Queen of Horror'.
Q: Whom are you influenced by in terms of style and storytelling? There
seems to be a touch of Hideshi Hino in your work, as well as
Supernatural elements similar to those in Junji Ito's work.I have been a horror manga artist for over 20 years; this means it has been 40 years since horror manga first hit shelves and boomed in Japan. My favorite manga artist at first was Kazuo Umezu, and second to him, I really liked Hideshi Hino. [Note: Dark Horse will be publishing 'Lullabies from Hell' by Hino in a couple of months, and the first volume of 'Scary Book' by Umezu has already hit shelves. Check it out! -MG]. As a reader, and an artist, I was greatly influenced by both of these masters, but I think the one that inspired my most - in terms of what I wanted to do achievement-wise - was Umezu. The drama in his manga blooms from the horror in the daily life of abnormal, malformed worlds with warped realities. The characters in his stories always have their own point of view, and that is what makes things scary; it's not an image, but the way the characters' emotions are projected upon the reader, making you feel not only scared, by tinged by jealousy, immersed in sorrow, or tainted with a little hatred (or, by the same token, love).
Umezu developed and summarily changed the 'Kaiki' (Mysterious/grotesque/abnormal) horror manga genre in Japan and created 'Kyoufu' (Terror/Fear) manga. Using these two genres as reference points within Horror Manga, Hino would be considered a Kaki manga artist. These two masters merged the genres into a general horror genre, which I myself belong to, as did the magazines that I discussed above.
Hino's themes usually also have one looking 'within oneself'; he draws upon connoted emotion, running the gamut from love to hatred, sorrow to elation, and furthermore tests one not to look at the world objectively, but to see through the strained eyes of oneself and utilizing one's own emotional project, draws out the monster within the reader - all of us.
I have been friends with Hino-sensei for about 15 years. The things I just mentioned about his style have been said by him as well, on many occasions. We have been doing collaborative work together for about five years now, and we do a lot of magazine cover designs, and hopefully, I am having some influence on him (but certainly not to the extent that he has had on me!). We've talked about creating a movie together, too, in the future, but we're not sure about that now.
Junji Ito made his professional debut after I did. I think, thematically, his manga is very close to Hino-sensei's. [Note: Check out Ito's 'Museum of Terror', which Dark Horse will be releasing in July.-MG]
Q: What kind of a tale is School Zone? How do you prefer to describe it? Much of the horror in School Zone seems to come from social groups and bullies. Does this reflect your own fears of going to school? What inspired this tale?
Simply put, yes. This story comes straight from my own experiences. I was really quiet when I was little, and afraid of people. I was afraid of school, too, because there are a lot of kids there - and I didn't like being around a lot of kids. Children are generally pure-at-heart, but it's that purity that makes their cruelty so cruel. Kids tend to be more honest, and to take things less tongue-in-cheek, so when a child says something hurtful to another child, it's much harder for them to shrug off. I am sure that everyone, no matter who they are or where they live, must have experienced this. I think a lot of this is exuded as a theme in my manga.
I also incorporated elements of actual school 'urban legends; in my story, such as motifs of 'Red Paper, Blue Paper' or 'Hanako in the Toilet'. Also, I included my original signs story in School Zone.
Q: Why do mirrors play such a central part in the story?Don't you think that a mirror has a really mysterious, psychic vibe to it? I think that this feeling regarding mirrors is worldwide; the mirror is this two-dimensional world that shouldn't physically have any depth to it. But, if you get really close to the mirror, and really look around, you can see a whole other space within the mirror - if you stare long enough, you might even feel as if you can walk in. Everything is just reflected, just an image made opposite. So, I was thinking, if you could enter the mirror, wouldn't it be possible that not only your physical appearance, but your personality as well, could be reflected?
Q: Is there a specific female perspective in your stories that sets them apart from other horror manga?
If there are differences, they weren't done at a conscious level. I think that women in general tend to notice more detail, and are especially adept at describing - be it through words or pictures - the psychology of children.
Q: How long did it take you to complete School Zone?
It never saw total completion I wanted it to see, because the magazine that it was serialized in was discontinued. At the time, I was drawing 32 pages per month, and it took me about a week straight to do one month's work (32 pages) for School Zone. It was circulated for 18 months, so 18 x 7 = 126 days.
Q: Why do you think comic book-style horror flourishes so much in Japan?
I think it is because Japan is so peaceful - and when I say that, I mean sedate. People tend to seek excitement in order to know that they're alive. People can get a physical rush from riding a roller coaster, which is excitement in a safe, contained way. Horror manga gives man this same sort of mental rush in a controlled environment.
Additionally, Japanese are raised with various scary stories that are a part of their cultural way of teaching morals and ethics. For example, if you do something unethical to person, you will be haunted into craziness by ghosts or spirits. I think these non-scientific, irrational teaching methods native to Japan are due to Japan's link with Buddhism and Shintoism, which, while entirely different , are completely evident in all parts of Japanese culture. However, the bipolarity between the two, and their complete infusion into the Japanese culture - permeates all social and cultural ideals, but serve as an oil and water, which is intrinsic to Japanese culture.
Q: Are there plans to turn any of your Manga works into movies or TV shows?
There are currently some pieces that are being broadcast on the net. Another piece was released in the theater about six years ago - which will not be named (laughs), but I would imagine it has been backshelfed somewhere and will never see the light of day. I get approached with TV movie offers every, but we never seem to come to a mutually agreeable stance. And, in addition to that, I have never really felt satisfied with my work on the big or small screen, so I am not really interested in pursuing any non-manga media outlet right now.