Yotsuba&!
Kiyohiko Azuma has once again posted to his personal blog talking about the people who want an anime adaptation of
Yotsuba&!. Actually, he opens by talking about people who say they’ve heard that Azuma didn’t enjoy the process of Azumanga Daioh’s adaptation to anime, and that’s why he won’t do an anime again. Azuma says he mostly ignores such questions, but he’s been getting a lot of them lately, so he is officially pronouncing: it’s not true. He goes on to talk about his feelings on the matter, such as fans who seem to think that manga is simply a stepping stone to anime—he says that as a mangaka, he thinks that manga is manga, and not something that you make only because you want it to be animated.
As to Yotsuba&! Specifically, he says it would be very difficult to animate the series, and that if he thought it was doable he’d go for it…but it’s probably not. I’m not 100% clear on the rest of what he says, but I gather that he thinks too many very short scenes or bits would have to be cut that he feels are important.
So if the lack of a Yotsuba&! anime thus far wasn’t enough to convince you, Azuma assures us that such an anime is probably not going to happen.
I think American anime fans would probably feel better about it if we were actually getting the manga regularly again…
on Dec. 4, 2008