Saki from YoYo 2011 on The Vermonia Manga Series

I very much enjoyed reading the children's manga series Vermonia and wanted to find out more about the YoYo authors. Saki who started it all by forming the YoYo group of artists has very kindly answered my questions.

Vicky: Why did you form YoYo and what does the name mean?

Saki: We formed YoYo with recent graduates from my college to create a new kind of manga, which is partly born from our Japanese team working in close collaboration with our New York and English editors. You can see many examples of our teamwork when you visit www.vermonia.com especially the power animals, weapons, and landscapes in the flash game. Nowadays the team leader, Saki, is almost synonymous with YoYo. We chose the name YoYo because we like the way it sounds in both English and Japanese and because being a manga artist has its ups and downs.

Vicky: How different is your manga to other manga?

Saki: It is not so important that YoYo's manga is so different from other manga, because for me manga is the means by which I make my characters achieve my own wishes and dreams. I believe manga artists work in a way very similar to the way in which stage directors create a play and movie directors make movies. In Vermonia one of the most important concepts that I want to convey to young readers is that everything is usually comprised of two opposites such as light and dark and Yin and Yang. Notwithstanding this, I believe that compassion can be the strongest force in the universe.. Further when I draw Vermonia, I always project my own wishes such as using magic, flying in the sky, and fighting with a sword. It is my great pleasure to imagine that when readers read Vermonia, they too can imagine their own wishes coming true.

Vicky: Have you had to make allowances for the fact that you are writing for children as opposed to adults?

Saki: The Vermonia story was conceived with tweens and teens in mind from the beginning since we were interested in the personal transformation that comes with coming of age. Knowing that we were creating for tweens and teens we had their issues and sensibilities most in mind. Certainly some of the more explicit sexual components of manga are not a part of what we do here.

Vicky: Why did you chose this style of illustration - instead of the ordinary comic book style ?

Saki: In Japan there is not one kind of manga style. Every Japanese manga artist has his or her own style. I grew up reading manga titles from an early age and I developed my own manga style in a natural, unconscious way. Manga is everywhere in Japan. This style just seeps into us.

Vicky: I notice that all the faces on your characters have European faces - is this common in manga?

Saki: This is a personal choice of manga artists. Very often when Japanese manga artists create love stories their characters tend to have European faces. Our four kids from Union City are Americans.

Vicky: What was the inspiration for the Vermonia story?

Saki: We imagined what might happen if four ordinary kids came of age when traveling in another planet that was quite different from Earth. From that premise our Vermonia adventure started. When I am drawing Vermonia, I am always wondering what would happen in this or that situation.

Vicky: Are they based on any type of world or Japanese mythology?

Saki: We put a lot of Chinese philosophy of Yin and Yang into this story. Further we were inspired by Chinese ancient thought and Japanese views of nature in which the world is believed to consist of five elements, such as fire, wind, water, plants, and metal. When I created the names of the four animal guardians for Doug, Jim, Naomi, and Mel, I was inspired by combinations of two kanji letters. I hope that our readers can get a feeling of our Japanese taste from these names.

Vicky: How do you decide who does what - eg illustrations or storyline etc?

Saki: Working with our editors, our Tokyo team first creates the storyline and then decides in Shitagaki ( first rough draft) how we might illustrate it, panel by panel. We refine this process through Pen-ire, the second stage, until we get to final art.

Vicky: I love the fact that the drawings are incredibly dramatic especially when the guardian spirits are released - how do you decide which parts of the story to illustrate and which to put in the text balloons.

Saki: Just as you say: some parts of the story are inherently incredibly dynamic and these we want to show visually in a big way. But the drawings always take precedence over the text. The text helps certain aspects of the narrative but you should be able to understand the entire story from our drawings with no text at all. On the other hand, speaking of the text balloon, I am convinced that it is a part of the art. When I decide where a balloon should be put in, I always consider the movement of eyes of readers, panel to panel, to make it easier to read.

Vicky: Sometimes you have words going across the pages - what do they mean?

Saki: These are usually sound effects. And these are the part of art as well. We made the decision to define these in English in the glossary of our website and to leave the Japanese as is since the calligraphic element is so beautiful and is important to the overall aesthetic.

Vicky: I find the Vermonia storyline inspirational of good over evil and very gentle - will you write for the adult side with a more grown up story but without the hard violence that a lot of the manga stories seem to have?

Saki: We are so glad you appreciate the gentleness of our work. It is a misconception in the west that manga has to be violent. It does not. But in any case, our manga art serves our story and it is the power of compassion that the kids learn from their animal guardians that is such an important part of our story. Compassion informs the philosophy of Queen Frasinella's reign on Vermonia.

Vicky: The Vermonia series I suppose you could say is gentle fantasy - do you have other genres you'd like to write in e.g. crime, adventure or even humour?

Saki: Yes. I am interested in creating manga stories based on the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales and manga love stories that happen during school life. But right now Vermonia takes up my every waking moment so it is hard to think now of working in any other genre.

Vicky: Who or what have been the biggest influences on the group of artists and writers involved with this series?

Saki: Manga which we have read, movies that we have watched, plays that we have watched, and all of what we have experienced in our lives are the biggest influences.

Vicky: Some manga books are in full colour - you only have a couple of pages at the front and back of the book why?

Saki: There must be a big difference between the style of full color manga and one of black and white manga. Manga often becomes much stronger when we draw with black and white than when we draw with full color.

Vicky: Studio Ghibli animated films such as Spirited Away and My Neighbour Totoro are very popular in Britain - will YoYo make their own Vermonia anime ones?

Saki: Yes, we are beginning to reach out to studios to pursue this possibility. It would be very exciting to see Vermonia in anime.

Vicky: The Vermonia books are the first manga I have ever read and learning to read from back to front was great fun, and I'd like to thank you for introducing a whole new genre to me. I very much look forward to more of your style of manga in the future and hopefully an anime film or two as well.

Saki: Thank you so much for your enthusiasm and support. We are honored that you choose to have your first manga experience with us and we are delighted that you have enjoyed our work so much.