Kio Shimoku provides a few more insights into the Hashikko Ensemble creative process this month.
Kio realizes that Menturm and Mentholatum are different products.
Kio posts a Hashikko Ensemble drawing used for a Monthly Afternoon cover. A fan mentions that they originally thought Himawari would become part of the core cast, to which Kio apologizes but in a way that makes him sound like an elderly man.
Kio clarifies that Hanyama would be Second Tenor, and was supposed to join as a tone-deaf member, but it never happened. (In the manga, it’s mentioned that Hanyama isn’t tone deaf, but rather is the son of a monk and therefore used to singing Buddhist chants, where the notes are slightly off from Western music.)
The drawing with Hanyama should be the last of the color illustrations, though Kio thinks there might be one more.
It took too many chapters to get Kousei into the Chorus Appreciation Society, which resulted in Shinji becoming the Second Tenor of the group. While that wasn’t the original plan, Shinji’s use as a tsukkomi character came in handy quite a bit.
Right when Kio starts to relax, a new manuscript is due. (It’s likely a new chapter of Spotted Flower.)
A drawing of Kozue feeling something in the stomach, with Kio saying that he thought stomach warmer season was over, but it looks like he still needs it.
A rough from the new chapter of Spotted Flower.
Kio suddenly needed to handle a bunch of administrative work, which exhausted his mental capacity to keep working on manga.
Lately, Kio has been revising his roughs into line art for color images rather than using the pen tool to do so. For some reason, the latter approach isn’t quite hitting the mark for him, even though that’s how Kio does B&W art.
It looks like Kio got drunk while watching a DVD of the “Hajimete no Africa” specials from the variety show How do you like Wednesday?
