Character Profile - Mumyoui Yatsume


- The motif is the good and old "spider-like man". That is, the inspiration of this character
is essentially the same as of Hannya. This was intended to be a retry of the unsuccessfull 
attempt of the "freak" I tried with Hannya, but looking back now, the outcome is much worse.
The biggest reason is, putting it bluntly, Saitou Hajime. It happened the same with Usui: no
matter how the characters are, all of them look like terribly weak when compared to Saitou...
in this sense, Saitou is a kind of an anathema to every character.
  The "Jintai Seisei" ("Refining of the Human Body") of Yatsume is an idea I'm quite fond of, 
but really looks like inadequate to a magazine for young boys (children). Even though it had
been acquired a posteriori by his own will, the fact that "his body is different from ordinary"
obliges the author to put a special attention about how did he(Yatsume) did such a process and
thus it hampers the development of his theme (obviously, the lack of competence of mine plays
a fundamental role, but...). Lately I've been thinking, "Aren't there more positive themes I
should be concerned with when working with a magazine for young boys, instead of clinging to
a bit negative themes like a "freak"? Shouldn't I give more importance to the positive themes
from now on?" And so, for a while I won't try the "freak" theme again. But in the design field,
I'll keep on trying. I like it, I can't help it.

- The design motif is, as you can see, a ultra-giga-mega-super mix. When I was drawing the 
initial silhouette of him, I based myself on Carnage, the bandanna mask version of a mix of
Wolverine and Spider-man that appears in the X-Men, but I heard from everywhere that the motif
was Spawn and/or Spider-man, so I got fed up with all this and said to myself, "okay, so let's
put Venom in him also", in a completely stupid way. Even though I added the "Kanahorishuu"
(Gold Miners) element, in the end Yatsume became the farthest character from a historical story.
I'm a fool. I'm an idiot. Before that, I'm a failure as a manga artist. I feel like making a 
retreat in the mountains to start from the abc again. To be honest, after this job is done,
I'll really practise and improve myself. I'll meditate under a waterfall, get enlightenment and
I'll start again. (I'm serious)