Report: Kubo Tite in America: San Diego Comic-Con International

30.07.2008 by Mike 'The Intercontinental Otaku' Aguirre

Saturday, July 26, was dubbed “Bleach Day” by Comic-Con International, in honor of their special guest, Kubo Tite, renowned manga-ka of Zombie Powder, and the international mega-hit, Bleach. This was not only Kubo-sensei’s first international convention appearance, but it was also his very first trip leaving his home country of Japan! Kubo-sensei needed a passport for the first time in his life. His initial impressions of America: the people were friendly, San Diego was beautiful, and he was impressed by the gorgeous sunsets. The vibrant colors of the sky were unlike anything he’s ever seen before in Japan. (Editor’s Note – This is probably because of the smog in Southern California!)

The day started with an autograph session by Kubo-sensei at the Viz Media Booth at 10:00am. (For those unaware, Viz Media is the U.S. distributor of Shonen Jump magazine.) For this event, fans were required to purchase a Bleach item from the Viz Media Booth. After that, they would receive a ticket which guaranteed them an autograph by Kubo-sensei. Tickets for the morning event were capped at 100 people. Needless to say, there were many disappointed Bleach fans with over 150,000 people in attendance at Comic-Con.

At 1:15 pm, Kubo-sensei arrived for his panel discussion to a packed room of over 450 Bleach otaku, many of whom were cosplaying as their favorite Bleach characters. It is this reporter’s opinion that the Comic-Con staff grossly underestimated the popularity of Bleach. While other meeting rooms could accommodate 700-800 people easily, the size of this room was at about a 480 person capacity. I noticed a line of at least 200 fans who were unable to make it into the room to attend the panel.

The panel was hosted by Marc Weidenbaum, Viz Media’s Vice President of Magazines and Editor-in-Chief of Shonen Jump and Shojo Beat Magazines. Along with Kubo-sensei and his translator was Nakasaki Atsushi, editor of Bleach, and Pancha Diaz, editor of the English adaptation of Bleach. Before the discussion got underway, Mr. Weidenbaum had a special presentation: Kubo-sensei received a Comic Con Inkpot Award, an achievement award that denoted him as one of the premier manga-ka’s in the world today! The audience roared with well deserved applause.

In the front row were 20 lucky Japanese Bleach fans who had entered and won a contest in the Japanese edition of Shonen Jump to come to America with Kubo-sensei. All the winners had written essays on why they wanted to come to America and what made them the best Bleach fans. They also came bearing a very special gift: exclusive for San Diego Comic-Con attendees, was a professional video tour of Kubo Tite’s art studio! Mr. Weidenbaum pointed out that our little room of 450 Bleach fans were the first people in the world to get an inside look at where the magic of Bleach happens.

Some notable items:
• The studio was immaculate. Everything was orderly and every pencil, brush, and ink bottle had its place. Kubo-sensei noted that he didn’t just clean it up for the video, it always looks that way!
• Kubo-sensei listens to music to help him work and for inspiration. As such, he boasts a collection of around 2000 CDs in his studio to help him work!
• The Kitchen is clean for a very specific reason: It’s very clean because we don’t cook!
• There was a very peculiar chair in his personal studio. A sort of modern-art piece with small holes aligned in straight rows for the back, ergonomically curved and stark white. He bought that chair because he liked it, and it became the inspiration for Aizen’s throne!

Before the panel officially started, fans were given note cards for the Q&A session portion of the panel. These cards were turned in and then screened by Mr. Weidenbaum. He picked out what he thought were some of the best questions that all people would like to know the answer to. With so many fans and so little time, not all questions could be answered. However, the remaining questions will be featured in an extensive interview with Kubo-sensei in an upcoming edition of Shonen Jump Magazine. Please see the end of this article for a full transcript of the Q&A portion of the panel!

Time flew, and our panel time with Kubo-sensei came to an end after a very fast 60 minutes. The day was not over, however. At 3:30pm, Kubo-sensei had one last autograph session at the Viz Media booth. The same ticketing rules as the earlier autograph session applied, only this time, tickets were capped at 50. This reporter was fortunate enough to obtain such a ticket and be the second person in line for Kubo-sensei. Another Viz Media policy that I disagreed with was, after you purchased a piece of Bleach merchandise, you could not get it autographed! The only thing Kubo-sensei would sign would be a special Shikishi board. (Pictured below)















Allow me to add a personal note to this review for a moment: I was disappointed because I have an awesome Bleach art book titled “All Colour But The Black” that I purchased in Tokyo. It’s mostly in Japanese and very rare to find in the states, so I thought it would be really cool to have him sign the book. My time arrived and I was able to shake hands and exchange a few words with the legendary manga-ka. I exchanged some pleasantries using my limited Japanese, and let him know that Bleach was my favorite Anime/Manga series. I humbly asked if he could sign my book, and his translator politely said no. I was disappointed, but I understood. As I was about to walk off, Kubo-sensei said, “Chotto matte…” (wait a second), and asked to see my book. He signed it! I shook his hand and walked off, elated with my contraband autograph!

Kubo Tite: Brilliant artist, amazing storyteller, and all-around cool guy.
























Q&A Session with Kubo Tite
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As mentioned earlier, fans were instructed to write their questions on a note card. The questions were screened and asked by the panel moderator, Marc Weidenbaum. Questions were asked and answered via a translator. Below is a transcript from the session. This is an absolutely exclusive transcript for Otaku2.com!

Marc Weidenbaum: Ok, so we have a lot of questions so we’re going to try and fly through them as quickly as possible. I’m sure you know that we won’t be able to get to all of them, but the ones we don’t get to will still be asked. We will be conducting a private one on one session with Kubo-sensei tomorrow, and we will ask your questions there. The interview and all your questions will be featured in a future issue of Shonen Jump. (Audience applause.) Ok, so let’s get started with our first question. What inspired you to become a manga artist?

Kubo Tite: I had decided to become a manga artist when I was still in elementary school. Later, when I became a manga artist, then I became interested in designs and architecture. So, if you were to ask me what other profession I would have chosen, I would say one of those.

MW: Next up is, “What was your inspiration for Bleach?”

KT: I wanted to draw Shinigami (Soul Reapers) wearing kimonos so I designed that first. Before that, when I designed Rukia, she wasn’t wearing a kimono. I wanted to create something that nobody had seen before. That’s when I decided to put her in a kimono. From there, I started creating the world of Bleach.

MW: What comes first, the characters or the story’s plot?

KT: The characters, definitely.

MW: The next question is about Chad. (Audience applause and laughter.) What inspired you to put a Mexican and Hispanic culture in Bleach? (Editor’s note: As there is a strong Hispanic presence in Southern California; this question drew huge applause and cheers from the audience.)

KT: It wasn’t something that I had intended. When I first designed Chad, when I saw him, I just felt that he had this Mexican heritage.

MW: Where do you come up with the clothes for the characters in the chapter opening drawings?

KT: I just put the characters in clothes that I wish I was able to find but can’t. (Audience laughs.)

MW: Who in the audience is an aspiring artist themselves? (Audience members raise hands.) The next question is for you guys. What advice do you have for aspiring manga artists?

KT: I’d just say believe in your talent, maybe others might say things (to discourage you) but… it’s very important for other people to enjoy it, but you have to do something that you yourself enjoy very much. Otherwise, it’s sort of dishonest to charge someone for your art and story (if you don’t believe in it yourself). That’s my advice. (Audience applause)

MW: The next question is from Jeremy Booth. He asked, “how did you come up with the idea for the Quincy and where does the name come from?”

KT: I created the Quincy to be Ichigo’s rival character, so for that, I put him in white clothing. I made the Quincys use arrows because it’s a long range (weapon) so that would make it difficult for Ichigo to fight him with a sword, because that’s a short range (weapon). As for the name, “Quincy,” the Quincy Cross has five points. That comes from the “gobousei” (pentagram) that’s a star symbol in Japan which also has five points. So “Quincy” is derived from the word “quintet.” (A collective light bulb went on above all the heads in the audience, as “ooooohhhs” and “aahhhhs” filled the room at this realization, followed by applause.) Since the Quincys use arrows, they are archers. So if you call them “Quincy Archer” that also kind of sounds like a person’s name, and I liked that. (More applause.)

MW: How do you draw your action shots and do you have anyone posing to help?

KT: Nobody poses for me for the action scenes. When I do the action scenes I have this rock music going on in my head. I just imagine the fighting scene, and then I pause the action in my imagination. Then I imagine a video camera going around (the paused action) so then I just rotate the camera and choose the best angle (Applause).

MW: We have a really huge stack of cards. I want to get to as many of them as possible. I hope you’ll humor us as we may have one or two questions ourselves as well. We have limited time with our honored visitor. One more question from the audience first. “When did you first realize that you had such a wide fan base in the United States?”

KT: Yesterday. (Huge laughter and screams from the audience.)

At this point I shouted “Amerika ni Youkoso!” (Welcome to America!) To which Kubo-sensei replied:

KT: Thank you! (In English!! More audience laughter and applause.)

MW: Pancha, you’ve been sitting there very patiently and I know you wanted a chance to ask a question as well of our guest, so please go ahead.

Pancha Diaz: Kubo-sensei, what part of the creative process do you enjoy most? Writing or inking or…?

KT: When I think about the story, if there is something that I wanted to draw for a long time then that’s very fun for me. I usually have these kinds of random scenes that I want to draw in my head, but they’re kind of scattered, so I try to connect them. My job is to make that interesting. So when I get to a scene that I really like, one that I really wanted to draw, I really enjoy drawing that scene. When I get to those connecting scenes, that’s when it gets a bit more difficult. I also really enjoy inking scenes.

PD: How long do you have between drawing a chapter and publication?

KT: Between two to three weeks.

PD: Wow, we get about 6 months in advance before we publish a chapter. (Editor’s note: Kubo has 2-3 weeks per chapter, Pancha Diaz already has a completed Tankouban to translate which contain multiple chapters, hence the lead time)

MW: The next question is actually something we asked at dinner last night, which was, “Will you feature a back story for Isshin?” (Lots of audience applause for this one!) {Editor’s note: Yes!! This was my question!!}

KT: I will draw it, yes. (HUGE audience reaction here!)

MW: I have to ask a follow up question which we also asked last night which was, “did you know he was a soul reaper from the beginning?”

KT: When I finished drawing the first chapter, I already knew he was a Soul Reaper. (More applause.)

MW: You have just been a tremendous audience, and I fear that for the first time in the past 45 minutes, I’m going to make you all groan instead of applaud. I need to tell you that we only have about three minutes left.
Audience: AWWWWWWWWWW BOOOOOOOOO (Etc)

MW: Now that we all got that out of our system, we can proceed.
Audience: Hahahahahahahaha… (etc)

MW: A question from Sylvia. Sylvia wants to know, “is the Kon doll based on any creation or is it based on something from your childhood?”

KT: I wanted to create something that looked fake. Something that was just random things thrown together. Now usually, you don’t have sewing lines in the middle of a face. Usually you do that to make something 3-D, however looking at Kon, he’s not really that 3-D at all. It’s absolutely not necessary to have a sewing line here (translator points to forehead). I just liked that fact. When Ichigo and Rukia first found him he was just lying in the street (by the trash). I actually have a back story about that. There was a festival, and this father and son were at this festival. The son wanted to get a stuffed animal, but the one he wanted was too expensive. The father chose instead to just buy a cheap one, that was Kon. He was so ugly that the kid just threw it away. That’s why he was in the street. (There was a life size Kon cosplayer in the back of the room that started sulking and walking away upon hearing this revelation. Everyone laughed hysterically, and when Kubo-sensei noticed this he pointed at the Kon and got a real huge kick out of it)

MW: We only have time for one more question, and I don’t know that anything can follow up that, but, this is the last question from James Hitchcock. “Where did you get the idea of using hell butterflies?”

KT: When I was looking in the dictionary for a word that goes well with Soul Reaper (Shinigami), I came across the hell butterfly; another name for the hell butterfly that is used is “great and beautiful butterfly.” It said in the dictionary that it prefers to fly in the darkness, so I thought that it fit very well with the Soul Reapers (shinigami) so that’s why I decided to use it.

MW: And on that note, I’m very sad that we have to bring to a close this historic opportunity. Please join me in thanking Kubo-sensei.

The audience gives huge screams of support and a standing ovation for Kubo-sensei. He waves good-bye and warmly receives the adulation of his adoring American fans.