The Ikegami Ryōichi Spider-Man Interview

“Ikegami Ryōichi intabyū”
From Ikegami Ryōichi and Hirai Kazumasa, Supaidāman Volume 5, (Tokyo: Media Factory, 2002), pgs. 317-321 (interviewer uncredited)

A major figure in both manga and gekiga, Ikegami Ryōichi is well-known also to American audiences for works like Crying Freeman, Sanctuary and more. His Mai, the Psychic Girl (written by Kudō Kazuya, 1985-1986) was one of the first manga series given a major push in English translation, serialized as biweekly comic books through the short-lived partnership of VIZ and Eclipse Comics in the late 1980s, and it attracted the eye of director Tim Burton as a possible follow-up project to Batman. The Burton Mai film, sadly, was not to be, but Ikegami’s later Crying Freeman, with its eponymous naked martial artist (and his many nude female and male sparring partners), secured Ikegami’s reputation in America as a purveyor of handsome, sensational action. However, as readers of TCJ already know, Ikegami was involved in a far earlier move toward comics internationalization with Supaidāman, his 1970-71 manga version of Spider-Man in Kōdansha's monthly supplemental edition of Shōnen Magazine (Gekkan bessatsu shōnen magajin). The following interview originally appeared in the fifth volume of the 2002 Media Factory paperback collection of the series, first published July 19, 2002, and has appeared in subsequent reprintings by Media Factory.

Ikegami Japanized Spider-Man, replacing nerdy Peter Parker with cute Komori Yū. He even spun off Japanese versions of Electro, the Lizard, Mysterio and the Kangaroo(!) before dumping the supervillains altogether to push things more in the direction of the harshly realistic gekiga for which he was known as a contributor to the avant-garde magazine Garo; the details of how Ikegami made the move from gekiga to web-slinging mass entertainment are recounted below. Translator and scholar Ono Kōsei, who provided research support to Ikegami and served as a U.S./Japan go-between, recalls that the violent nature of the project shocked and alienated Stan Lee, but it has stood the test of time in Japan as a landmark in manga and gekiga history, regularly re-issued and well-loved by manga connoisseurs. In the United States, Marvel eventually published 31 biweekly comic book issues' worth of Supaidāman under the title Spider-Man: The Manga (1997-1999), but this translation was incomplete, and the stories were sometimes edited to remove explicit content. According to our sources, Marvel will probably never reprint it again for American audiences.

Ikegami’s earlier career closely aligned with the rise and development of gekiga, a significant movement that showcased a more mature and serious approach to the art form, often delving into intricate and darker themes. His first published work was a short jidaigeki (samurai historical drama) released in 1962 by Hinomaru bunko in Osaka, the same rental manga publisher that fostered the emergence of gekiga creators in the late 1950s, including Tatsumi Yoshihiro (credited with coining the term “gekiga”) and Saitō Takao (whom young Ikegami admired). Upon moving to Tokyo in 1966, Ikegami began working as an assistant for Mizuki Shigeru (known for Kitarō and Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths), and collaborated with another significant gekiga artist and Mizuki assistant, Tsuge Yoshiharu (notable for stories like "Nejishiki" and "The Swamp"), all while contributing to Garo. Although Ikegami is primarily recognized today for his young adult and adult entertainment manga, his gekiga lineage suggests an “anti-authoritarian streak” (as noted in this interview) and some concern for the socially marginalized, including criminals. Such inclination was intricately tied to the broader social and cultural upheaval of the global counterculture of the late 1960s, during which youth rebelled against established authorities through diverse cultural expressions.¹ Viewed from this perspective, Ikegami’s Supaidāman may not strike us as quite so “foreign.”

The translators thank Ikegami Ryōichi for kindly permitting us to publish this interview. Although the English-language issues of Marvel’s Spider-Man: The Manga are hard to obtain, we encourage readers to seek them out. Like no one before or after him, Ikegami took one of the most iconic characters in American culture and made him into his (and Japan’s) own.

-Jon Holt & Shige (CJ) Suzuki, translators

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INTERVIEWER:² Supaidāman was one of your early period works. So, I’d like to first ask you how it fits into your career path from your professional debut.

IKEGAMI RYŌICHI: As soon as I graduated from a middle school in Fukui Prefecture, I headed out for Osaka.

I’m guessing you had made up your mind to become a manga-ka?

Not quite. While I lived in Fukui, I still had never drawn any manga. Because I loved pictorial art, I went to work for a sign painter [sign illustrator] shop located in Osaka’s Sen’nichimae district. Nearby our shop, there was the Hinomaru bunko rental-book publisher. So, I started drawing manga for them while working as an assistant for some of other manga-ka. I ended up catching the attention of Mizuki Shigeru-sensei for a manga story that I had submitted to Garo [magazine], and he eventually invited me by asking “Won’t you be my assistant?” As I was no longer interested in working as a sign painter, I took off for Tokyo to work for Mizuki.

While working as Mizuki-sensei’s assistant for about two years, I was also contributing some stories for Garo. An editor from Shōnen Gahō's publisher [Shōnen Gahōsha] read my stuff and asked me to draw a number of stories for their Shōnen King magazine. That soon led to me getting asked by them, “Why don’t you try drawing one of the sci-fi stories by Tsuji Masaki-sensei?” And I did. The Pursuer (Tsuisekisha) became my first serialized story.

Next I got a call from Kōdansha, and I ended up drawing for Weekly Shōnen Magazine (Shūkan shōnen magajin). The editors of this magazine in those days were trying to raise the target age of their readership. They wanted an approach to manga that was a bit more “literary” (bungei), so I tried adapting things like Nitta Jirō’s stories into one-shot stories (yomikiri). This was around when I tried some gag manga, too, but I realized I wasn’t cut out for the genre. It was all after these things that the request about adapting Spider-Man came up.

So, is it true that your Supaidāman series was initiated by the editorial side? Before this, Ikegami-sensei, had you read any American comics?

To tell the truth, I had no interest in the superhero genre of American comic books. Because, in those days, I was under the spell of the storytelling style they were making in Garo (note: gekiga). I wouldn’t have shown any interest at all if they had brought up an idea of typical American superhero story, but the editor [Uchida Masaru] told me, “This superhero is not a typical one but a distressed young person. He’s a protagonist with a naivete that is very similar to the world [and characters] you’ve been drawing for Garo magazine. That’s why this character does not suit any of my more entertainment-oriented artists. I really want you to take this job.” Hearing that, I decided to do it.

I see. That means if it had been another American comic-book superhero, you wouldn’t have accepted the offer, right?

I guess not. I liked the idea of the protagonist becoming a superhero while struggling with his own concerns and inner turmoil.

In the beginning, I was drawing manga based on the translated originals from American comic books, but because the stories were too simplistic, I asked the editor to let me try my own original story. I totally switched over to my original version of the character after that.

The Ikegami original version begins with what story?

It started with “The Spider-Man Imposter” (“Nise-Supaidāman”).³ I had drawn a number of stories before that, but each story at that time ran so long with 100 pages in length. So, I just didn’t have that much ability to pull it all off every time, you know? I even quit once.

However, once I tried my original stories, the series’ popularity began to catch on. We ended up asking sci-fi writer Hirai Kazumasa-sensei to join in as the scriptwriter. The first story we did together was “Winter Witch” (“Fuyu no onna”).⁴ This story was just fantastic and it was incredibly popular with readers.

That story really did send a shiver up the spine. But I wonder, for a shōnen (boys’) magazine, wasn’t the plot of the story a bit complicated for those young readers? What did the editors think about it at the time? Did they apply any constraints on you?

It might have been a bit complicated for young readers, but I think for certain readers, the story hit home. Still, they might not have worked for the average manga reader. But we did not get any push back from the editor. Even when I drew stuff like the main character masturbating, I hesitated thinking maybe I shouldn’t do it…. But you know, if I was really going to draw the real dark feelings of a young person, I couldn’t evade the kind of sexual feelings he has. Actually, they let me draw whatever I wanted. Hirai-sensei also read the stories I created and he let me keep that “odor” of mine that had built up in my series. Then, [Hirai-] Sensei helped out by giving it an even greater entertainment factor.

In the story “Devil Car” (“Kuruma”), I remember being shocked at how you both had the protagonist’s girlfriend die all too soon.

I think that’s because Hirai-sensei had a certain way of creating the superhero stories. Maybe he was a bit against having his hero get too close to the heroine. Plus, Hirai-sensei’s scripts were not in a typical scenario form. Instead, he wrote things down more like prose fiction (shōsetsu) for me, and he also told me that it was okay to shave off parts here and there and change out the structure as need be. He was very kind and really gave me a lot of freedom to do what I wanted. When I think about it now, it really was fun doing that job.

Your Supaidāman stories were dense with social criticism of the Japanese society in those days. For example, you inserted youth subcultures like bōsōzoku biker gangs, the anti-Vietnam War movement, and the students’ revolt.

It was a time back then when there was a lot of anti-war sentiment as expressed in folk songs that were popular with young people. Even somebody like myself was listening to Bob Dylan. It was also a time when people were talking passionately about the movies like Easy Rider and Bonnie and Clyde [Oretachi ni asu wa nai in Japanese], which had that anti-establishment and fallen-world vibes to them. When I was working on the series, we just naturally absorbed those sentiments from such a cultural environment as if breathing the air. Typically, artists have to find new themes as they grow up, but while I was young, I was just drinking up that stuff like other young people at the time who shared similar frustrations.

You really had this awareness of the social problems at the time. Where did you get your sensitivity for things like hypocrisy, self-seekers, and criticisms against the mass media [found in Supaidāman]?

Well, it is not just because I was drawing for alternative manga magazine Garo. I’ve always had a strong anti-authoritarian streak to me. I mean, for example, if there is a murder case, I would wonder who is really bad? I would end up shifting my sympathies away from the victim of the crime to the feelings of the perpetrator. Maybe I am a bit warped for thinking that way? Around that time, there was a serial murder case committed by Nagayama Norio,⁵ but what long held my interest—more than the details of the cases themselves—were the psychological conditions and environmental factors that made him commit such brutal crimes.

Actually, now I remember something. It was just some time after I had been paired up with Hirai-sensei. There was the [Setouchi] Seajacking Incident. We saw that the police shot and killed the hijacker on television. I said to Hirai-sensei, “If I die, I want to die beautifully like that,” and then Hirai-sensei disagreed and told me, “Ikegami-san, death is never pretty.” So, again, I cared less about the incident and more for the assassinated hijacker, sympathizing with something like that anti-authoritarian part of the criminal. I say this is because I believe I shared the concerns that Spider-Man had for the socially vulnerable, or the worries that Spider-Man carried. His constant dilemma of wanting to protect others but never being able to fully protect them - those worries of Komori Yū, the protagonist of my Supaidāman, were very much the worries of my own at that time in my life. Because I was hanging on to something like a lack of faith in adults, not trusting them for all their hypocrisy and deceit, I think that is what comes out.

In addition to the unique content of those stories, you also created panel layouts and tried interesting compositions of your illustrations.

Yeah, you’re right. I did things like showing a scene with a speeding car where all you saw were the arrow signs of the [curve] in the highway. They let me have a lot of fun with how I did the placements of my images. Today, looking back at what I did in the series, I realize how much fun it was. It was also a period when I shifted from the art style for Garo to something like an art for a more general audience through some trial and error. Dang, I really was young back then. Nowadays, there is no way I can draw pictures like that.

While you were working on Supaidāman, did you use any American comics for reference?

When I started out the series, I borrowed and consulted a number of American comics that someone [Ono Kōsei] had translated. In fact, I gradually came to like American comic books and started collecting American comics other than the Spider-Man books. Neal Adams, especially. [Media Factory Editor’s Note: Adams was an important creator (kuriētā) of Batman and Superman, but because Adams primarily worked for a different company than Marvel, Ikegami did not have direct experience working from that material.] About seven or eight years ago, I was lucky to have the chance to meet and talk with him at the San Diego Comic-Con. Since Supaidāman gave me the opportunity to learn from American comic books, perhaps that’s why today I have a “touch” of that art style in my own work. Immediately after I finished the Supaidāman series, I worked on Aiueo Boy (Aiueo bōi), and the setting of that story is in America, so I was more aware of American comics when working on it. When I say “touch,” I’m not saying that I was just mimicking their style, but it’s just something, something like the mood, you know? The intense rays of sunlight you have in America - it’s not like what we see in Japan. That’s why American comic books have much richer shading that what we have in manga. Yet, in my case I thought that if we take things too far like they do in American comics, my Japanese readers wouldn’t accept it, so I ended up employing the kind of half-tone that Mr. Kojima Gōseki⁶ is known for, all the while adding the kind of cool look that I borrowed from American comics.

Sensei, would it then be fair to say that Supaidāman was a “turning point” (tāningu pointo) in your career?

Well, that might be the case - at least, on the point of how my artistic style began to change from that point on. Anyway, I can say that it was a manga that not only helped me personally learn a lot of different things, but also that it received high marks and praise from other mangaka in the industry. Recently when I met Ms. Takahashi Rumiko, at the Shōgakukan Manga Awards ceremony, she surprised me by telling me, “When I was a kid, I read your Supaidāman, and that’s when I decided to become a manga artist.” At the time I was working on Supaidāman, I had the feeling that it was sort of a non-mainstream work, but, you know, maybe that’s exactly why, when I read it today, it doesn’t seem aged at all. Maybe that’s because I was able to dig down deep into the shared subconscious of young people at all times. It’s true that even though this manga is a work of the past, we can feel something real about it as if it were made today.

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1. For more on the connection between gekiga and the global counterculture, see Shige (CJ) Suzuki, “Gekiga, or Japanese Alternative Comics: The Mediascape of Japanese Counterculture” in Introducing Japanese Popular Culture - 2nd Edition, edited by Alisa Freedman (Routledge, 2023).
2. [Translators’ Note] It is common in Japanese media for an interview to be conducted by an uncredited employee from the publishing house, as is the case here. The translators wish to acknowledge this unsung hero, and emphasize that they did not conduct this interview; rather, they assume responsibility for the presentation of the text in English.
3. [Translators’ Note] This story arc consists of two 100-page installments of Shōnen Magazine across the May and June 1970 issues. When Marvel published Ikegami’s manga in English as Spider-Man: The Manga, the “Nise-Supaidāman” story ran for six issues from #10 through #15 (May through July, 1998); there, the arc was entitled “The Spider-Man Imposter,” and it featured the Japanese version of the villain Mysterio. The original Ikegami 100-page stories usually had to be split by Marvel into three issues for the American market, so each comic would usually contain roughly 33 pages, although this varied depending upon how Marvel could effectively pause the arc and then start again in the following issue.
4. [Translators’ Note] “Winter Witch” is the title used in Marvel's Spider-Man: The Manga translation. The original Japanese title means “Winter Woman.” The story ran in the November 1970 issue of Gekkan bessatsu shōnen magajin and it appeared in issues #22-24 (Dec. 1998-Feb. 1999) of Spider-Man: The Manga.
5. [Translators’ Note] Nagayama Norio (1949-1997) was a criminal who killed four people in 1968 at the age of 19. He became the subject of films and TV programs, including a documentary film A.K.A. Serial Killer (1975) by the leftist filmmaker Adachi Masao. More recently, Adachi directed Revolution+1, a semi-fictional film based on the life of Yamagami Tetsuya, assassin of Prime Minister Abe Shinzō, which premiered the day before Abe's “state funeral.”
6. [Translators’ Note] Kojima Gōseki (1928-2000) was an artist and illustrator, best known for his collaboration on Lone Wolf and Cub with writer Koike Kazuo. He specialized in jidaimono, a type of historical drama set in the Edo period of Japan, featuring samurai protagonists. The “rough” linework of his art was well-matched with depictions of bloody violence and the dynamic movements of samurai fighting.