It's a secret, but when I decided to apply to 'Shonen Magazine,' it was already past the deadline, so I had no choice but to go with 'Shonen Jump.' My motivation for becoming a cartoonist was... to put it bluntly, the ¥100,000 prize money."

I don't remember the very first animation I saw, but the one that stays deepest in my memory is definitely 'Astro Boy.'

I have memories of reading comics when I was in primary school, but that's about it.

There have been times when I didn't quite make my deadline.

It may come as a surprise to people, but I'm actually quite boring and normal. What do I do? I read books. I drive my kid to school. I have lunch with my wife. I pick my kid up from school. I go home.

In 1978, I entered the Tokyo Institute of Technology. I would have loved to study videogame programming, but nobody was teaching it then. So I went to classes on engineering and early computer science.

To read a newspaper is to refrain from reading something worth while. The first discipline of education must therefore be to refuse resolutely to feed the mind with canned chatter.

I am a crazy online shopper. My husband always jokes, 'Another box arrived!' Airplanes used to be my sanctuary for reading books, but now I have to peruse Gilt sales.