Yoshihiro Togashi is often considered to be one of the most influential manga artists of all time. The mangaka is renowned for his popular works in the shonen genre of manga and anime, especially for his works like Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho. Throughout his works, he will hook the audience with his unique storytelling methods, plot, characters, and imaginative world. As a result, Togashi-san has a dedicated fan following around the world.
However, in order to make the characters and plot more relatable, the world must be different, adding the possibility that anything can in the fictional world. While the HxH creator captivates his viewers majorly because of his characters and fascinating world creation, he has quite a surprising opinion when it comes to developing an imaginative world.
Yoshihiro Togashi Has An Interesting Opinion For The World-Building in Manga and Anime
A major part of Yoshihiro Togashi’s popularity is due to his mastery of world-building which is featured in his two magnum opus HxH and Yu Yu Hakusho. These two renowned shonen series, feature how the mangaka can create a world that would feature multiple layers, adding depth and infusing different and intriguing cultures and people, forming a mystical element to the show.
These elements can be used as a foundation for manga and anime by crafting rules and forming the geography and history of the world. However, Togashi-san believes that creating an immersive world can be totally avoided if the characters are interesting enough.
During a Q&A session, JUMP GIGA Twitter via VIZ featured some of the most burning questions that fans wanted to know from Masashi Kishimoto and Yoshihiro Togashi. It was during this session, that the mangaka shared how he prefers to play video games and he judges it not based on their world but on its gameplay system. He said,
“When I play a video game, whether I like it or not is usually based on the game-play system. So it’s a totally different type of enjoyment.”
He continued how a manga should follow a similar system where it should be interesting based on “character relationships,” and a manga’s greatness is proportional to the popularity of its characters.
Yoshihiro Togashi said,
“It would be nice if you could bring that system into manga, but manga first needs to be interesting based on character relationships. So even if a manga was like a game, it would be meaningless because you couldn’t interact with it. What makes a manga great is whether or not you can relate to the characters that the manga artist creates.”
He added,
“If the characters are lively and the manga looks fun to read, the world doesn’t even matter.”
Well, the mangaka is right because a majority of the characters determine the popularity of an anime or manga, Kishimoto-Sensei joked how he feels like he “once said something similar somewhere.” Nevertheless, well-written characters are more important than an intriguing world.
Masashi Kishimoto Explains The Importance of Creating a Relatable World
During the same Q&A session, a question was presented to both manga artists, asking “A world that you can’t relate to?” Masashi Kishimoto shares that sports is a very intricate world where he shares how everyone knows the baseball rules. Hence, it will create a relatable world but one wouldn’t be able to follow if a viewer is not aware of the rules, giving the example of Kabaddi. Kishimoto said,
“Take sports as an example. Pretty much everyone knows baseball, so I believe it’s easy to relate to. But if you bring in a niche sport, people don’t know the rules, so they can’t even tell what’s going on. So…and I apologize to people who play it, but something like kabaddi, the game from ancient India.”
Yoshihiro Togashi added,
“For someone who’s never seen it before, kabaddi would be a fantasy world.”
The Naruto creator agreed with the HxH creator stating that viewers would be clueless about the sport, so they would focus more on the characters than the sport. He said,
“Yes, they wouldn’t recognize it. So they can’t relate to it. So how do you suck someone into a story about kabaddi? You focus on the players. Why are they playing the sport? The drama of their motivations will interest the reader, and I think they will eventually learn the rules of the sport.”
The whole idea was explained in simple terms, as viewers could enjoy a show or manga as long as “there’s drama” and a gripping plot and characters are the greatest strengths of storytelling.
Yu Yu Hakusho can be streamed on Netflix.
