http://t.co/CZ7UeUdJer
1) Did you ever expect to have such a large western fanbase, and how do you feel about it?
I was very surprised to know there were fans overseas. I feel more passion from them than the Japanese fans and it makes me quite happy.
2) Why does your work tend to focus so much on economics, and does your knowledge of economics come from previous work in the field or college education?
Economics are like a puzzle and it's quite easy to make a story around them. Everything I've learned about economics are from self study.
3) When did you decide to start writing, and what influenced your decision to do so? Were there any significant past events that swayed you to become an author of such great work?
There really wasn't a trigger for me to become an author. It's just that I wanted to be a manga artist long ago but my drawings sucked so I became a novel writer.
4) What are some of the differences in writing a visual novel versus a normal print one?
In a regular novel you must explain the backdrop and setting but with a visual novel you can use pictures to do it so you can cut down on narrative. The alteration of a character's expression are also much easier in a visual novel.
5) Speaking specifically about Spice and Wolf and Magdala de Nemure, what are the first steps and what is the process to adapt a light novel into a manga or anime, how much do you get to be involved, and do you like doing adaptations?
I'm a professional author but I'm a novice in the drawing of manga and creation of anime so I leave it to them. I love adaptations. I'm able to see my work from a way I never saw it before and it's quite interesting.
6) Do you plan on writing another series in the Spice and Wolf universe, or perhaps writing another book in the series even though the series is "finished"?
I'd love to try doing this!
7) Have you considered a strictly text-based approach to interactive stories or do you think your stories work best when accompanied with visuals and music? How do you decide what medium whatever story you're working will best function in, like as a book or a VN?
I would like them to at least have music if there weren't visuals. It's just that they wouldn't differ from e-books so I'd think they'd need multiple endings or something like that.
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9) All Spicy Tails member: when you guys created Spicy Tails as a studio, do you have more creative freedom than your previous one? if so, how do you compare it?
Spicy Tails is my first circle. Things were done quite freely.
10) What is each group member's personal favorite visual novel and manga series, excluding any that they have personally worked on. In brief, why?
My favorite VN is Natural -身も心も-. Reason: Heroine is cute!
Favorite Manga is centaur no nayami. (Tokuma publishing: Murayama Kei) Reason: Lots of animal ears!
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alt) It's a rare event for people within the Japanese industry of visual novels, anime and light novels to interact with audiences outside of Japan. Even in video games, niche company Cave closed down all of it's English "channels" and we basically have no way of communicating with them. In general, I think it's amazing that you're taking the time to answer even a limited amount of questions for us in an environment like this. Do you think more Japanese companies need to try to expand their communication to Western audiences? As someone who's watched shows like Baccano!, Hataraku Maou-sama! and the Fate series and would like to read more into them with the light novels and visual novels, do you think companies should try to make an effort for Western audiences to have easier access to these?
It's quite difficult because of the language barrier. Without the help of others supporting me we'd never have been able to expand out to overseas. I feel that if there were lots of groups like Sekai Project then it would be a lot easier for Japanese circles to expand out to overseas. But you'll be able to enjoy quite a lot of works if you study Japanese :)