Ishida’s interview with Yomiuri Shimbun
Please let me know if there are any mistakes. You can read the original article here. Also, this is just a part of the full interview, so if anyone can provide me with the full interview when it is released I’d be more than happy to translate it.
Author Ishida Sui speaks for the first time about the conclusion of Tokyo Ghoul
The popular manga “Tokyo Ghoul”, depicting the battle between humans and the species that devours humans, has finished serialization after seven years. Over 37 million copies have been sold cumulatively. The author, Ishida Sui, has chosen to accept an interview with Yomiuri Shimbun. This is the first time Ishida has spoken in depth about his work through an interview with the media. Why did ghouls come to be? What kind of a person is Kaneki Ken? What are his thoughts on the final chapter that surprised fans? Details of the interview will be posted in the Yomiuri Shimbun morning paper on the 21st. An excerpt is shown below. (Culture - Kawadoko Yayoi)
“It’s like I’ve been dispossessed of an evil spirit now. During serialization it felt like I’d been taken over by a different person,” said Ishida. The interview was done over Skype. It appears that meetings with his editor are normally done over Skype.
“This happened recently, but one day I woke up in the morning and I had no clue on what I should do because there was no manuscript to work on,” Ishida said, laughing on the other side of the screen. Over the course of an hour and a half, he occasionally answered the enthusiastic questions of a reporter who was an avid fan of Tokyo Ghoul.
Where did you come up with the idea of ghouls, a species that can only survive by eating humans?
I thought about drawing villains who were part of a minority. It’d be too simple to have them be mere cutthroat murderers, so I thought it’d be interesting to have a species of them that live among humans.
Regarding the protagonist Kaneki, how did he come to have such a character?
At the time I liked shy protagonists with weak personalities, so I made him into a timid and inconspicuous character without putting too much thought into it. As a result, surrounding characters like Touka (the female ghoul) and Tsukiyama (the gourmet ghoul) distinctively stood out. Kaneki was a bit of a self-insert, so he was a difficult character to write until the end.
Ghouls are terrible monsters to humans, but they were written as an oppressed minority.
Maybe there’s some part of me that sympathizes with the minority. My parents moved around a lot and were Christians, so when I was a child I felt alienated being in a family that was slightly different from everyone else’s. I myself (just like Kaneki) feel like I am a part of both the majority and the minority.
I think that many readers were surprised by the happy ending in the last chapter. A girl was born between Kaneki and Touka, but it looked like Touka’s belly was big again…?
Yes, that’s right. It [the second child] was going to be a girl at first, but I think this time a boy would be nice.
There are many attractive human and ghoul characters, but is there a character you are particularly attached to?
Of course I want to say everyone, but appearance-wise it’s Hairu, the ghoul investigator. The girl with pink hair.
Huh? Didn’t you brutally kill her off?
Yes, that’s right. I regret killing her off, she was so cute too. It’s haunted me for a while.
There are many famous people who are fans of Tokyo Ghoul, such as the figure skater Hanyu Yuzuru.
Rather than focusing on having famous fans, I’m just happy to see that there are people who read it. To be honest, there are times when I wonder if there really are any people reading the series. So even receiving a letter from a child that says, “I’m reading Tokyo Ghoul,” makes me very happy.
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