Machiko Satonaka
Mangaka
Professor of Oosaka Art
University
Thursday, August 10, 2000
Female mangaka, Machiko Satonaka
Born
1/24/1948 in Oosaka
In
1964: “ Pia no shojyo (literally means “Portrait of Pia”) won
Kodansha Shinpan manga prize…
In
1972: “Ashita kagayaku (literally means “Shine in tomorrow”)
won Kodansha shuppan-bunka prize. For movie.
In
1973, “Aries no Otometach” (literally means “Virgin of
Aries”) is for TV series …
In
1979, “Kariudo no seiza (literally means “a constellation of
hunter”) became a TV drama
…
In
1997, “Tsuru-kame (crane and turtle) waltz became a NHK TV drama
She
is a committee member of many educational association and others including
Ministry of Education and Japan UNESCO
*Look
at the page of 101 in Schodt’s book!
1. She was a child who was drawing all day instead of playing
outside. Her parents encouraged her to develop her artistic ability by putting
drawing paper on the walls. However, her parents and teachers were not happy
that she became a mangaka since the status of mangaka was very low.
2. There are two main motivations of being a mangaka. One is that
manga is the best method of creating one world depicted by oneself. In other
words, the technique of creating manga is very similar to that of a movie;
however, manga is based on story and picture. Another is that she wanted to
change the low status of mangaka as artists in those days.
3. Although she was also reading female manga, she was strongly
influenced by at least 3 male mangaka: Mr. Osamu Tezuka, Mr. Tetsuya Chiba, and
Mr. Shotaro Ishimori (Ishinomori). From Mr. Tezuka, she learned to create manga
for different age groups of readers in diverse themes. From Mr. Chiba, who
often created manga in girls manga, she learned how to depict the mental state
of girls’ point view. Finally, she learned how to depict the composition
including frame, picture, and words effectively to express human sensitivity in
manga from Mr.Ishimori.
4. She does not want to limit the themes in her manga except for
sport since she cannot play sports although she loves watching sports.
5. Even if the mangaka does not have enough skill to depict
pictures well, the talent of creating a story will cover the lack of skills.
6. The relationship between mangaka and editors varies depending
on the publishing company. Some editors try to organize everything including
the content of story, but some just give the due date and the total pages for
the publication. It may be accurate to say that new mangaka tend follow the
editor's opinions.
7. It is not easy to judge if the Comike is good or bad since
there are a lot of different dojinshi depending on different purposes. Some
share their own taste with other people (like Dojinshi group). Some create
original manga just for fun or expect to be admitted as mangaka by publishing
companies.
8. She admits the value of the original purpose of the comic
market was that it gave young people freedom tocreate their original manga to
show the public without publishing companies. However, it is still a closed
world of hobby for those people who share the same tastes and the power does
not go beyond the world of comic market.
9. There are some serious problems with the Comic market: 1) It is
a small, closed world, 2) the evasion of taxes, and 3) the problem of
copyright. Especially, the problems of (1) and (2) are serious.
About (1), there is some concern that a famous mangaka who sells
dojinshi through the comic market might not declare the sales. About (3), young
people are not aware of the problem of copyright. Also, the comic market itself
prioritizes the right of people who rent the booth space more than the
originality of the manga (the copyright of the mangaka).
10. Although Pro-mangaka
try to educate the dojinshi groups not to create parodies without the
permission of the mangaka by destributing of pamphlets on the importance of
copyright, it does not work well. The young people believe that using the
characters from manga in their parodies is a results their respect for the
mangaka. Therefore, the mangaka
whose characters were used in parodies should be appreciated, but issues of
copyright need not be addressed.
11. For the question of why young girls create the genre of YAOI
(homosexuality in the parodies by using characters in famous manga), Ms.
Satonaka believes that the homosexual scenes might not catch readers' attention
or sell dojinshi. It is simply the artists' preference to see the characters in
these situations, although the scenes are exaggerated in hardcore sexual
scenes. For young girls, those sexual
scenes are only one way to overlap/share their emotions to prove their
love through those sexual scenes. Therefore, those sexual scenes are not
pornography for them. (Ms. Satonaka said that this is her belief of reasons for
YAOI, and the artists themselves might not conscious for the reason.)
12. In fact, there are many femal dojinshi groups over 30 years
old and they draw the genre of YAOI. She thinks that this phenomenon reflects a
social problem which Japan has: the psychological age of females is getting
younger. Even when they reach their 30s, their mentality is the same as
teenagers since they don't get married and have children. Actually, males are
not exceptions.
13. Her opinion of the new curriculum of art education which
adapted manga for 8th and 9th graders :
Due to the expression of manga depicted by pictures, manga tends to be associated with art, but
she does not think that manga is a part of fine art. Manga is created based on
many factors: not only pictures,
but also writing and other things. Although it might be possible to teach manga
as a part of Japanese history and
literature since manga occupies an important position in pop-culture in Japan,
the way of writing manga should not be taught through art education. Rather
manga should be produced through club activities of schools just as music,
theater, and sports activities.
Children will even learn how to create attractive manga by themselves without
education.
14. School should be a place to give children a basis to explore
many opportunities and directions for their future.
15. The educational curriculum in schools should not divide the
subjects. For example, based on one
theme, all subjects
should be involved to encourage children's curiosity and support their problem
solving abilities to find their own answer.
16. Teaching the skills of creating art is not art education; the
role of art education should be to teach
the pleasure of
creating art. Also, it should give a chance to be exposed to fine arts (even
reproductions).
*She has a lot of opinions not only for education, but also for
education.