Takei’s Childhood Influences – Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition Volume 1 Interview

With the new Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition, a new 3-hour interview was conducted with Hiroyuki Takei in June 2024 as additional new content. Portions of the interview were cut due to space and split across the 2 volumes. The interview was conducted by Sekai, one of the editorial staff at Shogakukan Creative who published the book. In a previous 2-part interview with Quarterly S magazine, they detail some of the production of the Butsu Zone book and the future of the Shaman King manga. The interview with Hiroyuki Takei for this Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition likely happened around the same time.

The first volume of the Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition contains the following:

• Butsu Zone chapters 1-9 (including color and bichrome color pages with chapter 1 and chapter 4)
• Butsu Zone oneshot chapter
• Collection of Butsu Zone illustrations previously released in past editions of Butsu Zone and Shaman King manga
• Character summaries and illustrations from the 2007 Bunko edition of Butsu Zone
• A new 5 page interview with Hiroyuki Takei
• Various illustrations only used in promotional ads for Butsu Zone that have never been republished
• Textless illustrations of all 3 original Butsu Zone manga volume covers
• New original color illustrations of Senju and Sachi

The interview included with the first volume focused on Hiroyuki Takei’s early childhood influences. The second half of the interview will be published in Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition volume 2 releasing in Japan on November 8, 2024. That second part will focus on Takei’s move to Tokyo and his time working as an assistant and then transitioning to his debut as a mangaka with the Butsu Zone manga serialization.

Below is some of the highlights from the interview, which is currently only published in Japanese:

• First manga Takei read was Barefoot Gen when he was in first grade and borrowed from the elementary school library
• Read Monthly Corocoro Comic magazine as a child, and specifically liked Choujin Kintaman, which was the first manga volumes he purchased
• Would occasionally read Weekly Shonen Jump, but only 3 other kids in his grade were reading it
• Cool Shock B.T., by Hirohiko Araki, was the first series he liked as art and deeply connected with
• Watched Time Bokan (タイムボカン) as his first mecha anime series. He enjoyed the “Time Mecha Buton” (タイムメカブトン) design, especially it’s wing structure.
• Feels that he took inspiration from the mecha designer Kunio Okawara and character designer Yoshitaka Amano from the Time Bokan series.
• Watched reruns of Mobile Suit Gundam, but Super Dimension Fortress Macross was the first anime he was invested in.
• His parents bought him lots of toys when he was very young, but once he started going to school his parents stopped giving him them and going into town was a special event. This furthered his desire to get toys and models
• He preferred die-cast and plated toys and models from an early age. He preferred the thick paint on Tomica rather than plastic toys.
• Currently he is obsessed with the modern “Diaclone” series of models
• Following “Diaclone” led him to the Transformers series
• Takei’s father was a car enthusiast, so their house had lots of posters and car models since he was born
• Playing the Outrun videogame led to Takei wanting to own a car some day and that he sees them like main characters in stories
• Occasionally read Gegege no Kitaro since elementary school
• Started reading Comic Bonbon magazine since the first issue in 1981
• Enjoyed the non-human and occult elements from Bem Bem Hunter Kotengutenmaru (which ran form 1982-1984)
• Takei’s mother was a nurse who tell him about ghost stories she witnessed at the local hospital
• One day he heard his grandmother’s voice calling his name while he was in high school. Later that day he found out that she passed away and cemented his belief that ghosts are real
• After his grandmother’s passing, he would sometimes get a knock on the window when he skipped school to play videogames, since he believed that she was angry at him and was very passionate about education
• Takei had taken in a newborn puppy in from the winter weather. He felt a presence and turned to see the puppy where he brought him inside to see a white ball floating up from it as it passed away.
• One time, Takei was biking to his friends house, which was less than 30 minutes away, but saw a strange orange light over the mountains. When he arrived at his friend’s house, his friend was pissed that he was late. Somehow 2 hours had passed and Takei can’t explain the hour and half of missing time.
• Later he heard that when UFOs abduct people they get implants in their mouths. Takei checked and found a hole in his mouth. He’s not sure if this is a good thing or not, and that maybe he has some sort of receiver in there.
• This personal abduction story was adapted in The Shape of Happiness (しあわせのかたち) manga, which Takei was later an assistant for.
• Started drawing pictures since he was in pre-school based on what he saw on TV. But didn’t draw people
• Takei’s first story and manga was drawn in 6^th grade. He thought the Shakugi Dogu (clay dolls from Aomori) must be aliens and wrote a story to prove it
• The first formal manga he drew was helping out a friend in his high school’s manga club for a magazine they were making.
• He didn’t go to high school much, but spent time in the manga club and played in his friend’s band. He was greatly influenced by his friends who were into the arts
• Takei moved to Tokyo before he graduated high school. It was almost like running away from home. Becoming a mangaka later was something that happened, not what he originally envisioned. He did officially graduate from high school.
• He thought he would get a job at a game company. He also submitted a shooting game into a contest using the game creation tool Egakiemon.
• Takei’s first part-time job in Tokyo was working at a convenience store
• From a connection at the convenience store, he visited the home of Tatsuo Yoshida, the first president of Tatsunoko Productions. He got some souvenirs of cels and setting materials from past anime productions, including ones done by Yoshitaka Amano (who previously worked on Time Boken).

The interview added timeline of events, which included some topics of discussion that were cut from the volume 1 publication. The following is a rough translation of that timeline:

The first volume of Butsu Zone Collector’s Edition will be available from multiple online retailers, such as Amazon.co.jp. It can also be purchased digitally from Bookwalker and other similar retailers.