Post by Timotheus on Oct 19, 2009 16:37:28 GMT -5
EXAMINING THE ORIGINS AND EARLY HISTORY OF OH/AH MY GODDESS, the MANGA. – 7/24/2009
The following topic does not represent the beliefs and opinions of the Goddess Project Administration and is presented here for informational and discussion purposes only. All subject material is the work of Timotheus and represents his research and opinions. Please direct all questions, comments, criticisms, profanity, and death threats to him and not our beloved administrator who is getting stressed out.
1.0 - IT BEGINS WITH AN ARTIST AND AN IDEA
1.0.1 - To begin any good origins article, we need to discus the background of the author who created the work.
1.1.1 - Kosuke Fujishima (or Fujishima Kosuke as it would be written in Japan) was born on July 7, 1964 in the Chiba region of Japan. While never achieving Human First Class status, he was discovered to have a B blood type and a fair amount of artistic talent which was applied toward drawing, mechanics, story telling, and music. In school he devoted much of his time to both mechanical designs and artistic story telling, although he claims the latter can only be called manga by default as he wasn’t consciously trying to be a manga artist. By high school he was creating multi-page cartoon stories with word balloon dialogue, but he really didn’t like showing them off and was still more inclined toward becoming an anime producer (please note, not an anime artist) than manga artist. And being a practical sort worked toward a certificate in technical draftsmanship.
1.1.2 - He graduated from high school in 1981-82 with a degree in technical drafting, but after failing to find an apprenticeship in that field he took a job as the editor of Puff, a comic news magazine. While there he allegedly created a parody comic called `X'-pa no Yoko-chan that ran in Puff but never took credit for. As the editor, one of his jobs was to interview new and popular manga artists, one of whom was Tatsuya Egawa in 1984-85, who was at the time just beginning to publish his ground-breaking serial Be Free! in Kodansha's Comic Morning magazine. After the interview, Mr. Fujishima rather boldly asked Mr. Egawa if he was looking for any new assistants. Mr. Egawa liked what he saw in Mr. Fujishima’s portfolio and hired him on.
1.2.1 - Tatsuya Egawa was born in the Aichi Prefecture of Nagoya, Japan. He has a degree in applied mathematics and taught middle school math for five months before switching to a career as a manga artist. After studying under the prolific manga-ka Motomiya Hiroshi for four months, Tatsuya's break came when his story "Don't Give Up" won Comic Morning’s open contest which gave him a slot to run his own series in the magazine. He has done several other noteworthy manga and anime titles and also directed live-action pornographic films (!!). Tatsuya is known for his drawings of over-the-top facial expressions and always giving credit to his staff for their contributions to his creations, the cover credits usually reading something like "Egawa and his assistants". In 1985 one of these became Kosuke Fujishima who would work for Mr. Egawa for about a year and a half. (This may explain where Mr. Fujishima got the inspiration for his occasional displays of over the top distorted facial features for Keiichi and others.)
1.2.2 - In 1986, Be Free! was made into a live-action theatrical movie and Mr. Fujishima did a manga style story on its creation called the Making of Be Free! that ran in Comic Morning and gained a great deal of popularity on its own. Mr. Fujishima considers this his first professional work and in the process created two policewomen characters to help tell the story who would later become known as Miyuki and Natsumi. At least one fan letter was received by the editorial staff at Comic Morning that made such an impression in its ravings about the two policewomen that Mr. Fujishima was invited to create a series based around them. With this as his inspiration for his first début series as an author and illustrator, You’re Under Arrest began running in Morning Party Extra in November 1986 and continued for 79 monthly chapters until May 1992.
(It was sometime between when he got out of high school and becoming one of Mr. Egawa’s assistants that Mr. Fujishima finally decided to make a serious try at being a manga artist. While he had originally considered a career in anime production and had learned some of the background skills, he had concluded that he wouldn’t be able to earn a living at it. Some of his conclusions about the life of an anime artist are spoken by Belldandy on page 38 of the second chapter of Oh/Ah My Goddess, Lair of the Anime Mania.)
1.3.1 - There’s a small amount of controversy over what happens next. While it is universally agreed that in August of 1988 a You’re Under Arrest Promotional Gifts Contest (T-shirts, pictures, key chains, etc.) was held for which Fujishima Kosuke did a promotional advertisement, just what that advertisement was is a matter of some disagreement.
The version with the most visual evidence is a page sized cartoon featuring Miyuki as a goddess and Natsumi as a girl who needs help with her You’re Under Arrest T-shirt. This cartoon has actually been reprinted and can be found on-line (go to Gateway to the Goddesses).
However, Studio Proteus and several other reliable sources have all described the advertisement as a four panel gag cartoon which featured Miyuki and Natsumi and/or other characters from You're Under Arrest! praying to a goddess of luck to please let them win the same contest. While this cartoon has not been reprinted, this version has been reported quite widely and for a much longer time than the first.
It’s certainly possible that both cartoons were created and used and Mr. Fujishima was inspired by the goddess characters in both of them, but however it works out, Mr. Fujishima was extremely pleased with how the goddess character turned out and this inspired him to reuse it when he was offered a chance to do a story for Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine.
1.4.1 - With this as a starting point, Mr. Fujishima began laying out the elements to base this new manga on. In his own words, “I thought it might be an interesting idea if being a goddess was (just) a job, an occupation.” and, “I based it on Norse mythology, which is relatively unknown in Japan.” From there he decided to make her one of the three Norns, again in his words, “They are from the three Norns in Northern Europe legends. They have existed with the gods since the ancient times, and they guard the world tree Yggdrasil. They make prophecies of all existences. Urd decides the past, Bell(Verth)dandy decides the present, and Skuld decides the future. As you can see, they aren't that different from the manga.” This also determined that Urd and Skuld would be part of the story from the very beginning.
1.4.2 - The next things that were needed were a setting and a male protagonist. How and why Mr. Fujishima came up with a down at the heels college student is unknown but his own personal interests in motorcycles and engineering certainly helped lay out Keiichi’s background. The naming of Morisato Keiichi seems to give us some insight into Mr. Fujishima’s interests and his associates. It’s reported that he prefers listening to DMX (a digital, commercial-free radio service) while he works and likes a wide range of music, from classic American hard rock such as Van Halen and Bon Jovi to Japanese idol singers to jazz. There is in fact a rather convincing rumor that the name "Morisato" is based on the name of the idol singer Moritaka Chisato. But the evidence for where he got Keiichi is even stronger
1.4.3 - According to Wikipedia and a couple of independent sources, Mr. Fujishima was inspired to name Keiichi after a real-life racecar driver and jazz musician named Keiichi Tsuchiya. Both sign their name using the shorthand version K-1 ("one" being pronounced as ichi in Japanese), both are noted as using drift techniques when racing (Keiichi Tsuchiya is called the drift king), and both wear green firesuits when racing. (I’d love to find out if “Radio Z” the song Keiichi is singing in the Karaoke contest is a play on one of Mr. Tsuchiya’s songs.)
1.5.1 - On September 25, 1988, Chapter One of Oh/Ah My Goddess! – The Called Number is a Wrong Number was published in the November issue of Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine in Japan, and our story of goddesses, college students, motorcycles, temples, demons, robots, and any other anime or manga cliché Mr. Fujishima could think of began. For awhile he also did an occasional series called Striker about a baseball player but that seems to have faded away and I could find little information about it other than the name and main character. So from 1988 to the present day Oh/Ah My Goddess! has been Mr. Fujishima’s main artistic production. He’s occasionally commented about ending it and starting something new, but then admits he still has stories to tell about the characters and he doesn’t want to quit until they’re told.
1.5.2 - By the way, did you notice the word "cliché"? That's right; one of the overwhelming themes of Oh/Ah My Goddess is Mr. Fujishima's use of other manga themes and styles as basic plots for his story chapters. He will take something like a sports or gaming or racing or transforming robot or robot girl or young love or supernatural or (you get the idea) manga, adapt it to his characters and then run with it poking fun at all the stereotypes and clichés of that type he can. And throw in a few cameos of well known manga characters of those genres as well. This is one of those things he does so well you really don't notice it unless you're really looking, and then you start finding it everywhere.
Chapter 58, Let’s Have Fun (Play the Game), released April 1993 is an excellent example of this sort of thing.
1.6.1 - Besides You’re Under Arrest and Oh/Ah My Goddess!, Mr. Fujishima has a wide range of interests and hobbies, so many in fact that it’s been described as ridiculous - building plastic models and garage kits, playing electric guitar, playing with computers, video games, watching anime, caring for his numerous tropical fish, owning, riding and repairing several motorcycles and three cars, along with dabbling in all sorts of other things. He’s also friends with many of the other manga-ka and anime artists and spends a great deal of time hanging out with them (and they with him). This is why there are so many crossovers and guest appearances of characters in different manga and anime in Japan, it’s almost required if you’re part of the fraternity.
1.7.1 - To conclude this part of the topic, here’s a list of titles Mr. Fujishima has been associated with, the years involved, and in what capacity he was involved. This is in no way complete.
You’re Under Arrest - -1986-1992 - - Author / Illustrator
Oh My Goddess! - - 1988-Present - - Author / Illustrator
Sakura Wars - - 1997-2000 - - Character Designer
Note: Mr. Fujishima is still involved with the Sakura Taisen series even after 2000. He is rumored to have consulted with Hidenori Matsubara for the new NY Kagekidan character designs of Sakura Taisen 5 (the latest title in the series), released in 2005
eX-Driver - - 2000 - - Character designs and settings
Tales of Phantasia - - 1994, 1999, 2003, 2006 - - Character Designer
Gungrave - - 2002, 2003, 2004 - - Mechanical Designer
Piano - - 2002, 2003 - - Character Designer
Tales of Symphonia - - 2003, 2004 - - Character Designer
Tales of the Abyss - - 2005 - - Character Designer
1.8 – Table of References
A - Nationmaster.com - Encyclopedia > Kosuke Fujishima
B - Studio Protius and Dark Horse Biography of Kosuke Fujishima
C - Interview with Makoto Shinkai and Kosuke Fujishima in the April 2004 issue of Afternoon, a Japanese monthly manga magazine (release date February 25 2004). Interview was staged as a Talk Article in Afternoon Filmography in honor of Voices of a Distant Star starting in Afternoon.
D - Animerica Interview with Fujishima Kosuke, Volume two, Issue two, February 1994
E - FUJISHIMA KOSUKE Q&A!? - From Newtype, June 1993
Translated by #Anime! Deedlit, slight editing by #Anime! Keiichi
The following topic does not represent the beliefs and opinions of the Goddess Project Administration and is presented here for informational and discussion purposes only. All subject material is the work of Timotheus and represents his research and opinions. Please direct all questions, comments, criticisms, profanity, and death threats to him and not our beloved administrator who is getting stressed out.
1.0 - IT BEGINS WITH AN ARTIST AND AN IDEA
1.0.1 - To begin any good origins article, we need to discus the background of the author who created the work.
1.1.1 - Kosuke Fujishima (or Fujishima Kosuke as it would be written in Japan) was born on July 7, 1964 in the Chiba region of Japan. While never achieving Human First Class status, he was discovered to have a B blood type and a fair amount of artistic talent which was applied toward drawing, mechanics, story telling, and music. In school he devoted much of his time to both mechanical designs and artistic story telling, although he claims the latter can only be called manga by default as he wasn’t consciously trying to be a manga artist. By high school he was creating multi-page cartoon stories with word balloon dialogue, but he really didn’t like showing them off and was still more inclined toward becoming an anime producer (please note, not an anime artist) than manga artist. And being a practical sort worked toward a certificate in technical draftsmanship.
1.1.2 - He graduated from high school in 1981-82 with a degree in technical drafting, but after failing to find an apprenticeship in that field he took a job as the editor of Puff, a comic news magazine. While there he allegedly created a parody comic called `X'-pa no Yoko-chan that ran in Puff but never took credit for. As the editor, one of his jobs was to interview new and popular manga artists, one of whom was Tatsuya Egawa in 1984-85, who was at the time just beginning to publish his ground-breaking serial Be Free! in Kodansha's Comic Morning magazine. After the interview, Mr. Fujishima rather boldly asked Mr. Egawa if he was looking for any new assistants. Mr. Egawa liked what he saw in Mr. Fujishima’s portfolio and hired him on.
1.2.1 - Tatsuya Egawa was born in the Aichi Prefecture of Nagoya, Japan. He has a degree in applied mathematics and taught middle school math for five months before switching to a career as a manga artist. After studying under the prolific manga-ka Motomiya Hiroshi for four months, Tatsuya's break came when his story "Don't Give Up" won Comic Morning’s open contest which gave him a slot to run his own series in the magazine. He has done several other noteworthy manga and anime titles and also directed live-action pornographic films (!!). Tatsuya is known for his drawings of over-the-top facial expressions and always giving credit to his staff for their contributions to his creations, the cover credits usually reading something like "Egawa and his assistants". In 1985 one of these became Kosuke Fujishima who would work for Mr. Egawa for about a year and a half. (This may explain where Mr. Fujishima got the inspiration for his occasional displays of over the top distorted facial features for Keiichi and others.)
1.2.2 - In 1986, Be Free! was made into a live-action theatrical movie and Mr. Fujishima did a manga style story on its creation called the Making of Be Free! that ran in Comic Morning and gained a great deal of popularity on its own. Mr. Fujishima considers this his first professional work and in the process created two policewomen characters to help tell the story who would later become known as Miyuki and Natsumi. At least one fan letter was received by the editorial staff at Comic Morning that made such an impression in its ravings about the two policewomen that Mr. Fujishima was invited to create a series based around them. With this as his inspiration for his first début series as an author and illustrator, You’re Under Arrest began running in Morning Party Extra in November 1986 and continued for 79 monthly chapters until May 1992.
(It was sometime between when he got out of high school and becoming one of Mr. Egawa’s assistants that Mr. Fujishima finally decided to make a serious try at being a manga artist. While he had originally considered a career in anime production and had learned some of the background skills, he had concluded that he wouldn’t be able to earn a living at it. Some of his conclusions about the life of an anime artist are spoken by Belldandy on page 38 of the second chapter of Oh/Ah My Goddess, Lair of the Anime Mania.)
1.3.1 - There’s a small amount of controversy over what happens next. While it is universally agreed that in August of 1988 a You’re Under Arrest Promotional Gifts Contest (T-shirts, pictures, key chains, etc.) was held for which Fujishima Kosuke did a promotional advertisement, just what that advertisement was is a matter of some disagreement.
The version with the most visual evidence is a page sized cartoon featuring Miyuki as a goddess and Natsumi as a girl who needs help with her You’re Under Arrest T-shirt. This cartoon has actually been reprinted and can be found on-line (go to Gateway to the Goddesses).
However, Studio Proteus and several other reliable sources have all described the advertisement as a four panel gag cartoon which featured Miyuki and Natsumi and/or other characters from You're Under Arrest! praying to a goddess of luck to please let them win the same contest. While this cartoon has not been reprinted, this version has been reported quite widely and for a much longer time than the first.
It’s certainly possible that both cartoons were created and used and Mr. Fujishima was inspired by the goddess characters in both of them, but however it works out, Mr. Fujishima was extremely pleased with how the goddess character turned out and this inspired him to reuse it when he was offered a chance to do a story for Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine.
1.4.1 - With this as a starting point, Mr. Fujishima began laying out the elements to base this new manga on. In his own words, “I thought it might be an interesting idea if being a goddess was (just) a job, an occupation.” and, “I based it on Norse mythology, which is relatively unknown in Japan.” From there he decided to make her one of the three Norns, again in his words, “They are from the three Norns in Northern Europe legends. They have existed with the gods since the ancient times, and they guard the world tree Yggdrasil. They make prophecies of all existences. Urd decides the past, Bell(Verth)dandy decides the present, and Skuld decides the future. As you can see, they aren't that different from the manga.” This also determined that Urd and Skuld would be part of the story from the very beginning.
1.4.2 - The next things that were needed were a setting and a male protagonist. How and why Mr. Fujishima came up with a down at the heels college student is unknown but his own personal interests in motorcycles and engineering certainly helped lay out Keiichi’s background. The naming of Morisato Keiichi seems to give us some insight into Mr. Fujishima’s interests and his associates. It’s reported that he prefers listening to DMX (a digital, commercial-free radio service) while he works and likes a wide range of music, from classic American hard rock such as Van Halen and Bon Jovi to Japanese idol singers to jazz. There is in fact a rather convincing rumor that the name "Morisato" is based on the name of the idol singer Moritaka Chisato. But the evidence for where he got Keiichi is even stronger
1.4.3 - According to Wikipedia and a couple of independent sources, Mr. Fujishima was inspired to name Keiichi after a real-life racecar driver and jazz musician named Keiichi Tsuchiya. Both sign their name using the shorthand version K-1 ("one" being pronounced as ichi in Japanese), both are noted as using drift techniques when racing (Keiichi Tsuchiya is called the drift king), and both wear green firesuits when racing. (I’d love to find out if “Radio Z” the song Keiichi is singing in the Karaoke contest is a play on one of Mr. Tsuchiya’s songs.)
1.5.1 - On September 25, 1988, Chapter One of Oh/Ah My Goddess! – The Called Number is a Wrong Number was published in the November issue of Kodansha’s Afternoon magazine in Japan, and our story of goddesses, college students, motorcycles, temples, demons, robots, and any other anime or manga cliché Mr. Fujishima could think of began. For awhile he also did an occasional series called Striker about a baseball player but that seems to have faded away and I could find little information about it other than the name and main character. So from 1988 to the present day Oh/Ah My Goddess! has been Mr. Fujishima’s main artistic production. He’s occasionally commented about ending it and starting something new, but then admits he still has stories to tell about the characters and he doesn’t want to quit until they’re told.
1.5.2 - By the way, did you notice the word "cliché"? That's right; one of the overwhelming themes of Oh/Ah My Goddess is Mr. Fujishima's use of other manga themes and styles as basic plots for his story chapters. He will take something like a sports or gaming or racing or transforming robot or robot girl or young love or supernatural or (you get the idea) manga, adapt it to his characters and then run with it poking fun at all the stereotypes and clichés of that type he can. And throw in a few cameos of well known manga characters of those genres as well. This is one of those things he does so well you really don't notice it unless you're really looking, and then you start finding it everywhere.
Chapter 58, Let’s Have Fun (Play the Game), released April 1993 is an excellent example of this sort of thing.
1.6.1 - Besides You’re Under Arrest and Oh/Ah My Goddess!, Mr. Fujishima has a wide range of interests and hobbies, so many in fact that it’s been described as ridiculous - building plastic models and garage kits, playing electric guitar, playing with computers, video games, watching anime, caring for his numerous tropical fish, owning, riding and repairing several motorcycles and three cars, along with dabbling in all sorts of other things. He’s also friends with many of the other manga-ka and anime artists and spends a great deal of time hanging out with them (and they with him). This is why there are so many crossovers and guest appearances of characters in different manga and anime in Japan, it’s almost required if you’re part of the fraternity.
1.7.1 - To conclude this part of the topic, here’s a list of titles Mr. Fujishima has been associated with, the years involved, and in what capacity he was involved. This is in no way complete.
You’re Under Arrest - -1986-1992 - - Author / Illustrator
Oh My Goddess! - - 1988-Present - - Author / Illustrator
Sakura Wars - - 1997-2000 - - Character Designer
Note: Mr. Fujishima is still involved with the Sakura Taisen series even after 2000. He is rumored to have consulted with Hidenori Matsubara for the new NY Kagekidan character designs of Sakura Taisen 5 (the latest title in the series), released in 2005
eX-Driver - - 2000 - - Character designs and settings
Tales of Phantasia - - 1994, 1999, 2003, 2006 - - Character Designer
Gungrave - - 2002, 2003, 2004 - - Mechanical Designer
Piano - - 2002, 2003 - - Character Designer
Tales of Symphonia - - 2003, 2004 - - Character Designer
Tales of the Abyss - - 2005 - - Character Designer
1.8 – Table of References
A - Nationmaster.com - Encyclopedia > Kosuke Fujishima
B - Studio Protius and Dark Horse Biography of Kosuke Fujishima
C - Interview with Makoto Shinkai and Kosuke Fujishima in the April 2004 issue of Afternoon, a Japanese monthly manga magazine (release date February 25 2004). Interview was staged as a Talk Article in Afternoon Filmography in honor of Voices of a Distant Star starting in Afternoon.
D - Animerica Interview with Fujishima Kosuke, Volume two, Issue two, February 1994
E - FUJISHIMA KOSUKE Q&A!? - From Newtype, June 1993
Translated by #Anime! Deedlit, slight editing by #Anime! Keiichi