Image credit:コミックナタリー
When the popular manga "Chainsaw Man" announced its anime adaptation, its original author, Tatsuki Fujimoto, made a puzzling and peculiar statement: "Is 'Chainsaw Man,' which looks like a rip-off of 'Dorohedoro' and 'Jujutsu Kaisen,' really going to be adapted into an anime by the same company that produced the 'Dorohedoro' and 'Jujutsu Kaisen' anime!?" Did "Chainsaw Man" truly plagiarize "Dorohedoro" and "Jujutsu Kaisen"? The author's public statement was likely a joke, but it also reveals the high regard in which "Dorohedoro" and "Jujutsu Kaisen" are held by the self-proclaimed genius Tatsuki Fujimoto.
網友讚譽林田球的天才 Image credit:X
And if we open Japanese Twitter and search for "Dorohedoro" and its author, Q Hayashida, "genius" will be the most common keyword found in a large number of search results. However, much like the masked or beast-headed characters she draws, Hayashida's background and origins largely remain a mystery. Last month, the equally acclaimed anime adaptation of "Dorohedoro" finally announced its next season. Let's introduce a few lesser-known facts about Q Hayashida, to help you better understand this mysterious great genius of the current Japanese manga scene.
1. Who is Q Hayashida?Q Hayashida, a female mangaka and illustrator, born in 1977, majored in oil painting in the Department of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. This is what you can find about Hayashida-sensei's life on Wikipedia. Q Hayashida, unlike other talkative mangaka, doesn't share her upbringing or discuss how her background influenced her drawing style... Nevertheless, we can find a starting point from her brief biography: she majored in oil painting in the Department of Fine Arts at Tokyo University of the Arts. And when discussing oil painting experts from Tokyo University of the Arts, one must certainly mention Professor Akira Yamaguchi, who creates oil paintings in a Japanese style, with works strongly reminiscent of Yamato-e or Ukiyo-e.
山口晃筆下的日本橋新三越本店 Image credit:nippon.com
Hayashida was one of Professor Yamaguchi's students. Yamaguchi recalled Hayashida during her university days, stating: "(Hayashida) had short hair, was thin, and had a good figure. Her eyes were sharp, and her limbs were long. She was the kind of woman who made you wonder 'what is going on in this person's head.'"
Thin, long-limbed, and with sharp eyes – it sounds like Hayashida-sensei was a lone wolf in her youth. In fact, her personality is also very unconventional. She once said, "I don't like drawing things that are similar to others' work or things that have already been drawn... I don't like conventional or established colors... The characters I draw will never be those rosy-cheeked types, nor will I draw stories where protagonists shed big tears while enjoying youth or falling in love." Looking at "Dorohedoro" and "Dai Dark," many people can't believe that a mangaka capable of drawing such brutal scenes is female. Well, sorry to disappoint them, but Hayashida-sensei, who consistently sticks to her vision, has certainly surprised them.
《異獸魔都》開始連載於2000年12月30日發行的スピリッツ増刊IKKI 創刊號 Image credit:ゲッサン
2. Data Collection ExpertMany manga artists of this generation draw heavily from other forms of entertainment and popular culture. Yoshihiro Togashi, when lacking inspiration, would rent movies from video stores; Hirohiko Araki referenced many classic horror films; and Tatsuki Fujimoto, who also loves movies, has "Fire Punch" deeply connected to cinema in every aspect. Hayashida Q loves video games and movies, but what makes her special isn't just watching films or playing games; it's that she takes incredibly diligent notes.
"Dorohedoro" Anime Version Image credit:アニメ『ドロヘドロ』
Every comedian has their own joke notebook, jotting down comedic inspirations as they come. Hayashida Q, though not a comedian, also has such notebooks, and not just one. She absolutely adores the movie "Alien," appreciating its space setting and the unique sense of isolation and confinement that environment creates. Hayashida has not only rewatched it countless times, but almost every time she watches the film, she also records her observations about it in a notebook. These cinematic observations are compiled into a single notebook, which is how Hayashida collects inspiration.
Furthermore, Hayashida Q doesn't just have many "movie inspiration notebooks"; she meticulously categorizes and records interesting news she sees in newspapers and magazines, intriguing specialized terms from TV shows, casual doodles from daily life, and more, all in different types of notebooks. Hayashida Q absorbs knowledge from the world that interests her, collecting it like Pokémon, waiting for the day it can be put to use. She started this habit of data collection when she was very young, and she has never been lazy about it. This habit has cultivated Hayashida Q's most crucial creative style:
"Dorohedoro"'s magnificent scenes blending the aesthetics of Angkor Wat and the Roman Colosseum Image credit:booklive
With a wealth of data, Hayashida can not only effortlessly draw upon numerous references when illustrating, but more importantly, this collection habit has also made her increasingly clear about her preferences, and she continues to gather more information based on these preferences. Things she likes are collected more extensively, while things she has no interest in are not collected. This tendency, after years of repetitive habitual processes, gradually transformed into a clear boundary, and this style, in turn, has led to two influences.
3. No AssistantsAs a serialized manga artist, and one who continuously serialized "Dorohedoro" for eighteen years, producing 167 chapters across 23 tankōbon volumes, it is almost unimaginable in the Japanese manga industry that Hayashida Q works without any assistants. However, this is not because Hayashida Q deliberately imposes harsh conditions on herself, but rather it is one of the consequences of her long-standing habit of data collection.
The mysterious Hayashida Q-sensei's only exposed hands Image credit:コミックナタリー
Hayashida Q's data collection habit has already built a specialized "information system" in her mind. She knows precisely what kind of information is recorded in which notebook, and as she personally writes down notes, this context is simultaneously established in her brain. Her mind automatically links similar information; for example, the movie "Alien" and the game "Dead Space" both belong to the space horror genre and feature depictions of human mutation (the chestburster larvae in "Alien" and the limb mutations of Necromorphs in "Dead Space"). From these two works, which already share a common origin, she discovers new creative ideas... Such a process of ideation and its results are very difficult to simply and directly convey to an assistant.
This is the first impact of organizing data alone: Hayashida has internalized a vast amount of entertainment culture, accumulating sufficient creative energy during this internalization process. Therefore, she doesn't even need to discuss plot details with an editor like Tetsuo Hara of "Fist of the North Star." Only she herself understands the plot's development, and only she can draw what she wants to draw. Having an extra person help would require time for communication and checking the finished product, which would not make the process faster.
"Dorohedoro"'s unique art style Image credit:booklive
4. If You Don't Like It, You Don't Like It
As a commercial serialized manga artist, one typically has to adhere to several "royal road rules." Perhaps the work's narrative formula must conform to the royal road, or the character designs must conform to the royal road. However, "Dorohedoro" is "anti-royal road" in every aspect. The most obvious rebellion is that the male protagonist sports a repulsive lizard head—much like Honda, the skeleton protagonist in "Skull-face Bookseller Honda," who, when fantasizing about a live-action adaptation of his work, would surely cast a handsome actor to play his skeletal self. A handsome and dashing male protagonist is the most basic royal road, but why does "Dorohedoro" insist on doing the opposite?
This is the second impact of independently organizing her materials: Q Hayashida specialized her likes and dislikes. She only acts according to her own preferences, drawing only what she likes and what she excels at, disregarding everything else. Hayashida felt that what she was least skilled at was drawing human expressions, so she simply drew the male protagonist and other characters with non-human designs whose faces were difficult to express emotions.
The bizarre faces of "Dorohedoro" protagonists Image credit:note
" 'Oh, so this drawing style is popular with readers now, if I draw like this, it will attract more popularity'—I would absolutely never do something like that, and this point is non-negotiable. Why? Maybe there's something wrong with my brain (laughs). I know that if, as a manga artist, I don't draw popular things, there will definitely be problems, and I am aware of that risk. However, this is also a point I will never concede. What I dislike, I truly dislike; what I like, I truly like, so there are some things I will absolutely not draw. Conversely, what I like, I will pour all my effort into drawing."
"Dorohedoro" opens with violent scenes Image credit:X
Novelist Kawasaki Bura once said that the content of "Dorohedoro" clearly and deliberately avoids certain "royal road" developments in manga. Q Hayashida openly admits this is true. She dislikes drawing human faces, so there aren't many characters with normal human faces in "Dorohedoro"—because even human characters often wear masks; and all the characters in "Dai Dark" wear masks. She dislikes youth or romance plots, so "Dorohedoro" deliberately avoids "pink bubble" moments. And she loves horror films, film noir, and monster movies, which is why in the opening of "Dorohedoro," you see a lizard-headed, human-bodied monster biting a human head, and the last man it saw before losing its memory is the target of its revenge—this bloody and dark opening completely gathers all the elements Hayashida loves.
5. Half-Naked Girls Are the Best
What elements does Hayashida like? One of the important characters in "Dorohedoro," Ebisu, appears shortly after... and exposes herself. Furthermore, female characters like Nikaido and Noi also have impressive chests, frequently displaying ample cleavage... In fact, this highlights an element Hayashida loves: half-naked girls.
Don't let "Dai Dark" fool you, it also features 'half-naked' girls Image credit:timeout
Hayashida's favorite manga include "Magic User's Club" and "Urusei Yatsura." These works contain numerous fan-service-oriented sexy scenes, which led Hayashida to appreciate Lum in her bikini, or Katsumi, whose clothes are torn off by demons. Therefore, upholding her "I draw what I love" philosophy, Hayashida included many of her beloved big-breasted, sexy, half-naked girls in "Dorohedoro" and her subsequent work, "Dai Dark."
6. What entertainment works does Hayashida enjoy?In fourth and fifth grade, Hayashida was very fond of the films "Akira" and "My Neighbor Totoro"—you can see that many character designs in "Dorohedoro" strongly resemble the art style of "Akira"; and the combination of a powerful monster and a cute girl sharing an innocent relationship also has a strong "My Neighbor Totoro" vibe.
Hayashida, known for her brutal art style, surprisingly enjoys "Danchi Tomoo," which resembles "Chibi Maruko-chan" Image credit:U-NEXT
Additionally, Hayashida's most beloved manga, works she has reread countless times, include: "Dragon Ball," "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure," Sensha Yoshida's "Puri Puri Ken," the long-running fantasy manga "Atagoul," Rinko Sasaki's classic shojo manga "Animal Doctor," the passionate youth sumo manga "Utchare Gosho Kawara," the daily life manga about children living in a housing complex, "Danchi Tomoo," and horror master Daijiro Morohoshi's manga adaptation of the Chinese supernatural tales "Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio," titled "Morohoshi Daijiro's Strange Tales," among others... You can see that these manga Hayashida enjoys span genres such as fighting, horror, fantasy, heartwarming, and even nostalgic family comedy; these vastly different genres blend together to create the unique character of Hayashida's works.
Hayashida also loves most Marvel Cinematic Universe films, and even sought out the original Marvel comics to read (though she couldn't fully understand the plot due to the language barrier). She also enjoys many classic American TV series such as "Breaking Bad," "BoJack Horseman," "Law & Order," "Twin Peaks," "The X-Files," "House," and "Narcos." The more rigorous dialogue arrangement, dramatic structure, and methods of setting up and resolving plot points in American dramas have all become subjects of study for Hayashida; she even watches American dramas while drawing—absorbing creative inspiration while outputting creative energy. Hayashida believes this is the best way to internalize these classic works.
"Dorohedoro" also adopted the bizarre and nonsensical style of "Twin Peaks" Image credit:Entertainment Weekly
Of course, the number of works Hayashida has seen far exceeds those mentioned above, which adds another layer of enjoyment for readers when engaging with her works: you can search "Dorohedoro" for references to which masterpieces have been incorporated into Hayashida's strange world?
Q Hayashida is like a maverick blender; for decades, she has continuously absorbed the essence of everything that interests her, then squeezed out cups of fine brew, gathering energy from all directions. Hayashida is not a slave to the massive manga industry system; she loves her work and insists on continuing to work alone, producing works she enjoys. At the conclusion of "Dorohedoro"'s eighteen-year serialization, Q Hayashida had already decided on the birth of her next work, "Dai Dark"—this wasn't even a decision by the editors or publisher; it was Hayashida's own decision... because she felt, "I'm going to draw a space-themed work, and it doesn't matter if I haven't even started conceptualizing the entire plot or main characters yet." This decision even startled the editor-in-chief of Shogakukan's manga department, and they boldly announced the new work even though only the title "Dai Dark" had been confirmed.
Cover of Monthly Shonen Sunday April 2019 issue, when "Dai Dark" began serialization Image credit:コミックナタリー
The setting of "Dai Dark" is the vast cosmos; the story describes a mysterious boy whose bones possess the ability to "grant all wishes," and who slaughters all enemies with ill intentions towards his body. "Dai Dark" combines cosmic adventure, road movie, and film noir themes; for a mangaka who loves "Alien," "Thelma & Louise," and "Dead Space," it's no surprise that she would create such a work.
The Japanese manga industry is evolving to the next stage, with more and more mangaka like Q Hayashida, who are more actively digesting the rich entertainment cultural heritage of the past and attempting to mix and reassemble it into fresh new flavors. Q Hayashida is a master among them; she remains veiled in mystery, and we can never guess the ending of her works. This layer of mystery is perhaps the best gift Q Hayashida gives us—the surprise we get every time we turn to the next page of her work.