Ichi the Witch Author Interview in popstyle! - Summary/Translation
So yesterday (Feb 4th, 2026 in Japan), a newspaper article came out with an interview with Usazaki-sensei and Nishi-sensei about Ichi the Witch!
As far as I'm aware there's no public way to view it, but there's like, a newspaper archive you can pay to access in Japanese... long story short, I was able to find it! Here is some of the interesting stuff (imo) that we got from that interview!
[Edit, March 7th 2026: There's now a public official upload of the interview in it's original Japanese, which you can read here!]
(DISCLAIMER! I am still learning Japanese! A lot of this translation is done by me checking machine tl's and cross referencing them with dictionaries! Please understand there may be errors, that the information presented here is best as I understand it and may be incorrect, misinterpreted, or updated later if I find it to be wrong! Thank you for patience with me!!)
Quotes when used are from Google translate + my own adjusting and referencing.
Comments that are Mine and not in the article are marked in Blue!
Ichi now has over 1.5 million copies in circulation! (Including digitals)
Volume 7 (jp) will come out on March 4th
[From Nishi] The series idea came from Nishi wondering why there were magic women [witches] (majo, the word for witch in japanese is the character for magic and woman), but no magic men. (Statement also made in the author comments in volume 1)
[From Nishi] Originally, the idea had been about a boy who wanted to become a witch, and a knight who protects witches. However, Nishi thought a world with Living Magic would be more interesting. She also thought it would be more interesting if Ichi was "Outstanding", so she decided to make him only interested in hunting.
[From Nishi] "Ichi doesn't have anything. He doesn't have any dreams, he doesn't have anything he wants to do. He's just living day by day[...]"
On account of the last point, Nishi gave him the Death for Death code. She wanted it to be easy to understand (repeatedly a point of emphasis Nishi makes in interviews), and based it off the Code of Hammurabi (eye for an eye). Regarding death for death, Nishi says "But I don't know if that way of thinking is right. It's a very dangerous way of thinking. I'm looking forward to seeing how (that mindset) grows and changes."
Nishi does the panel layout (storyboards, wiki article here) for the series, and Usazaki says Nishi conveys the composition well. Like Nishi's, Usazaki prioritizes readability as well as ensuring fans can see the faces of the characters they like clearly and appealingly. She wants the series to look beautiful and works really hard to make it that way even though the series is weekly! It's tiring, but she enjoys drawing (THANK YOU USAZAKI SENSEI WE LOVE YOU USAZAKI SENSEI!!!!)
Nishi designs the majiks by thinking of an attribute (fire/water/etc), or things that make good attacks. Then, using that kanji as a basis, she builds the Majik around what's most interesting or useful (story wise, i think.) to create an animal or such. She wants to make it simple to understand for even children.
[More under the cut i just don't wanna decimate ur dash. do you love the colour of the ichi interview]
Uroro was inspired by Howl's Moving Castle. Additionally, the throne element of his design was Usazaki's idea, because "it's the king magic"
WHM is designed as the complete opposite to Ichi. Nishi's inital design had them a more gentle, smiling character (early Kiriwo like maybe), however Usazaki designed a cold eyed, not smiling character, and Nishi thought that fit best, so they went with that.
On the subject of Majiks, Usazaki likes Kizashi bcs of their movement expression options and less human design.
Witches each have their own motifs (which we already knew but its neat to see them mention) , like plants and animals and stuff.
Nishi says that Majiks are not necessarily enemies, and that she wanted to have the freedom to have Majiks be enemies and allies so that readers wouldn't get bored.
On the question "What's a memorable scene you put a lot of work into", Usazaki says the end of the bakugami arc with that battle and all. Nishi backs this up saying that while Usazaki is known for beautiful quiet scenes, she can also draw excellent battles, and that everyone can see how wonderful they are and praise her.
In terms of pairing up for Ichi the Witch, Nishi started Ichi conceptually while working on Iruma, but as she was working on Iruma, she said she wanted Usazaki to do the illustrations, and an offer was made to her. At the time, Usazaki had been doing her own storyboards so wasn't sure about having someone else do them. She asked to meet and talk with Nishi, and was interested by the storyboards she received.
Nishi says that, as a writer, she'd always wanted to try writing for Jump. After she started trying to do that, she found Usazaki was illustrating for Jump, so everything worked out really well there. Having serialized Iruma for eight years (plus it getting an anime and 4 spin offs and one of those spinoffs is getting an anime and--) she feels pretty secure in that so she wanted to regain a sense of urgency, which she definitely feels in jump, where she can't let her guard down. She's happy about this. (nishi sensei mentioned wanting to challenge herself in a magazine interview about mostly iruma and a bit of ichi a few months ago. terrifying nishi. you're amazing we love you.)
[Usazaki on becoming a Mangaka] She grew up reading magazines like nakayoshi, hana to yume, and then jump. She really liked One Piece, and joined the art club at her high school. From there she started posting on Social Media, etc.
[Nishi on becoming a Mangaka] She always loved drawing, and after knowing a guy in high school who wanted to be a mangaka, she submitted a manga to an award and recklessly moved to Tokyo after graduating. She won that award, got a serialization, struggled a lot with that serialization and then became an assistant to learn more.
Usazaki cites "Tsubasa" by CLAMP, and "NGLife" by Kusanagi Mizuho as inspirations.
Nishi cites "Hellsing" by Hirano Kouta as an inspiration
In terms of mindset, Nishi says she doesn't assume people will read what she writes, and so she works to make eyecatching illustrations and spreads, and making something people Want to read.
Nishi also says that whenever Usazaki submits a really good manuscript she wants to write an even better story, so it synergies well.
Both of them say they want to go as far as they can! Please support the series (I WILLLLL!!)
Notes on all the characters!
Ichi:
"Completely different from the character I first designed, who loved magic and wanted to be a witch." (Nishi)
WHM:
"Fluffy clothes and hair." (Usazaki)
"At the end of their fight with Ichi, they looks like they're smiling. I wonder why." (Nishi) (YEAH I WONDER.)
Desscaras:
"I just told Usazaki to design her with the 🥺 emoji and black hair and Usazaki came back with the perfect design. Genius!" (Nishi)
"She's a strong and cute character, I love her." (Usazaki)
Her design was completed within 5 hours of Nishi and Usazaki's first meeting. (perfect from birth...)
Gokuraku:
"He was originally going to be a tsundere, but instead I made him a 'sexy older brother (oniisan) lol'" (Nishi) (I swear on my life that is exactly what she said. I would never lie about Nishi calling Gokuraku sexy.)
"I love his freckles they're so cute" (Usazaki)
Kumugi: "We made her at the same speed as when the seralization started" (Nishi)
The article also mentions the giveaway they're doing but lets be real none of us are eligible so! That's the end of that! Thank you for reading all this! I would post the full article in jp but that is against tos and I'm not trying to get banned from jp newspaper archive. If you're interested in the raw though, shoot me a message and Ill try and help you find it! This is most of the interview, though some things that were just laying out the setting or repetitive I opted not to mention. you're not missing anything.
...Bruh could have drawn something cuter and more "lovey dovey" if my mood ain't this bad and my thoughts ain't this spiraling. I've risen from the grave LOL, yes I know, still mediocre than ever (at least I tried! Kekwww)
Glad it is finally an off work day, but it is not over yet, life's still going, evil still keeps walking around... But hey, a little bit of hope won't hurt, huh?
Also, it's 2026 and these two are still yearning I am going to flip any moment now aaaaaaaaaaaa
