The interview’s finally finished! I hope it was an interesting read. What I’ll probably do is combine all these parts and post the full interview on the blog. Anyway, enjoy! Turns out Shinbo is quite into cooking.

– By the way, although the two of you have both already opened up to each other, what were your impressions when first meeting?

Umino – I was a bit worried. I just really didn’t know what sort of person Shinbo-san was as there weren’t any rumours or anything about him. I couldn’t picture him at all, so I was thinking what should I do if he was a scary person? So when first meeting him, as I expected, my first impression was that he looked strict. He didn’t speak or move very much, you see.

– This was after asking Shaft. During your meeting whilst visiting the company, wasn’t it?

Umino – But after that, we went out for supper, and after a lot of drinking he had become drunk. He suddenly wasn’t scary so I thought “oh, what?” It was very fun (laughs). The oolong tea he was drinking as a chaser wasn’t going down at all, in fact the ice was melting faster than he could drink (laughs). “It’s a different person from the one I saw at Shaft!” I thought.

Shinbo – I was quite nervous whilst we were at Shaft, you see. From my point of view, I was meeting a manga artist who, after reading their work, I thought was amazing. I’m not very sociable either (laughs). I’m a very shy person. So when talking, it needs to be whilst drinking at that sort of a place for it to work. To be more talkative I need to be drunk.

Umino – But after becoming more talkative, you’d forget what you were saying and realise this mid way – that was very fun too. I was thinking, “he’s forgotten everything!”.

– You might have a worse memory than Kyouko Okitegami (Boukyaku Tantei Series) (laughs).

Shinbo – Maybe (laughs).

Umino – A detective that forgets before sleeping, and after drinking (laughs).

– But I remember you were both getting on really well. Like, you were talking about Yoshimi Uchida, whose works you had both read before starting this anime adaptation.

Shinbo – We talked a lot about shoujo manga, didn’t we?

Umino – We also talked about Akira Kawa-sensei as well.

– As the topic of food has come up I would like to say the food and mealtime scenes from ‘March comes in like a Lion’ are also popular. I think there will probably be a lot of people wondering how this will be presented in the anime.

Umino – Shinbo-san was talking very enthusiastically about how he challenged himself to cook rice using a donabe, and about his nonstick frying pan (laughs).

– Yes, you were saying that you had ordered a nonstick frying pan and were looking forward to receiving it.

Shinbo – That one was no good. After using it the food was getting stuck all over so I decided to throw it away. Rather than this, now I’ve bought a nambu ironware frying pan. A 21 cm one. Now only nambu ironware will do it for me.

Umino – When you were recommending the nonstick frying pan so much to me (laughs).

Shinbo – I’ve also bought an egg shaped piece of nambu ironware. Apparently if you put boiled water into it, the water takes in the iron. Though until you get used to it, it’s quite smelly with iron. The age for nambu ironware is coming for sure.

– You’re very particular about cooking. I want you to take full advantage of this for the anime!

Shinbo – I have a corner of a column in a quarterly magazine, but the other day I didn’t talk about anime or manga at all, but rather went on about donabe pots (laughs). What’s quite funny is that, I got into food cooked using a donabe after eating at a certain restaurant that cooked in this way, but I recently heard by coincidence that Tatsuyuki Nagai also got into donabe pots after going to that same restaurant.

Umino – Smith (Tatsuyuki Misumi) from ‘March comes in like a Lion’ actually got his last name from Nagai-kantoku.

Shinbo – What, really!?

Umino – He directed the second season of ‘Honey and Clover’. At the time I thought what a pretty name, so I decided to use it for Smith.

Shinbo – It’s a good name, isn’t it? Even such a person as him is apparently really into donabe pots!

Umino – At some point I also want to go to that restaurant and get into donabe pots! I’ll go to that shop and live as a human donabe!

Shinbo – The food there was so nice I thought ‘What is this!?’ and so the hostess said that they cooked using a donabe.

– So the next time you have a talk, I guess it will be at that restaurant (laughs).

Umino – Before this, Shinbo-san was talking about how he had gone to an electrical store and asked for their most expensive rice cooker. When they brought one out that cost 50,000 yen, Shinbo-san said “Not this, something better!” (laughs). Is that one losing to the donabe?

Shinbo – I do use it occasionally, but cleaning the pot, inner lid and all over is really bothersome. Maintaining a donabe is simple!

Umino – Ah, a donabe.

Shinbo – I do end up messing up quite a lot, but with that it’s nice as it’s different each time. A rice cooker is always stable, but the donabe isn’t which makes it so good.

Umino – With a donabe, how many cups of rice do you cook at a time?

Shinbo – Around 1 ~ 1.5.

Umino – If my rice was cooked using a donabe, I could eat so much with the rice being so good.

Shinbo – It’s good, and even if I mess up I still like it as it is.

Umino – In what way do you mess up?

Shinbo – Making the rice a bit too hard for example. There are also times when I make the rice too soft, but leaving it out for a bit makes it just right. Also if you add a bit of salt to rice that’s too soft, it will change into something so delicious that it’s not of this world.

Umino – With salt (laughs)?

Shinbo – Once it’s a bit like porridge, add a bit of salt and it’ll be like “What’s this!? It’s like minerals from the sea!!”. This won’t happen every time, just once in a while.

Umino – So depending on the hardness of the rice, you prepare it differently to make sure it tastes good?

Shinbo – That’s right. When it’s suitably soft for salt, it’s unbelievably good. Like the sea minerals soak into your body. Such good rice, I wouldn’t want anything else.

– Like, “I don’t want the side dish!” (laughs).

Umino – I’m going to put this conversation into the manga, with the shogi players just as it is. Someone will say “like minerals from the sea!!” and the others around will be surprised and say “with salt!?”

– Lastly, can you please provide a message for all those looking forward to the anime?

Shinbo – Umm, what shall I say? It hasn’t even come out yet (laughs). We’re making it at the moment, but the people on the character designs, and those on direction are all amazing. The person working on the art setting is something like a genius, so I think we’ll be able to make something that will please the fans of the manga.

Umino – I’m really looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to it so much that, if I look forward to it this much, it might become more of a burden for Shinbo-kantoku and Shaft…!? (laughs). Let’s all wait in excitement, and we’ll all say yay once the anime starts!

Source: http://3lion-anime.com/special/interview/vol01/?p=17

Image: http://3lion-anime.com/special/endcard/