Although Shonen Jump has high-caliber mangas like One Piece or Jujutsu Kaisen, the one that has stood out the most in recent months is undoubtedly Kagurabachi. The story of the swordsman starring Chihiro Rokuhira has achieved enormous success, but if he has gotten to where he is, it is thanks to many inspirations from movies and video games, one of them a spectacular title from PlayStation Studios.
During an interview with Manga Plus a few weeks ago, Shonen Jump editor Takuro Imamura spoke about the works that inspired Takeru Hokazono to create Kagurabachi. It turns out that, in addition to revenge stories like John Wick and Tarantino films, the author was greatly inspired by Ghost of Tsushima to internationalize Japanese culture.
“Hokazono not only likes the movies, but also the game Ghost of Tsushima, which features many distinctly Japanese motifs. Perhaps he finds the concept of 'foreign images of Japan' or an 'attractive Japan' interesting. Therefore, he incorporates He intentionally added quintessentially Japanese elements like swords and goldfish at key points. However, since he is creating it with the intention of gaining popularity, we hadn't consciously considered how it might appeal internationally. When I heard he was rocking it overseas after When serialization started, I was surprised and thought, 'Wait, it's popular there?' “It was a pleasantly unexpected response, like a happy miscalculation.”
Hokazono, as Imamura tells it, paid attention to the details that the elements of Japanese folklore presented in the game of Sucker Punch. Seeing that it worked so well in Japan, the author wanted to emulate this “own fanservice” by adding similar elements so that the Japanese would notice these types of details.
What was not expected is that this method would also work in territories outside of Japan, something that surprised even Shonen Jump, which is already preparing it to be one of the magazine's big headliners. And not only about the publisher, the author also made his objective clear: he wants to bring Kagurabachi to the anime format, but for this to happen we will have to wait.
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