Adam Arnold (Seven Seas) Interview

Rasmussen : First off please introduce yourself to our readers, and tell us a bit about yourself.
Mr. Adam Arnold : Hi, I’m Adam Arnold. I write the harem comedy Aoi House and I also oversee production on Seven Seas Entertainment’s manga line. I'm 25, single, have long hair, and enjoy long walks on the beach.

Rasmussen : Tell us, if possible, the secret origin of Adam Arnold (prior to Seven Seas or Aoi House).
Mr. Adam Arnold : It all started back in June 1997 when I woke up one early one Summer morning in time to chance upon the first episode of Sailor Moon on USA Network and was instantly hooked. Sailor Moon became an obsession for me that led me to other series like Tenchi Muyo. And thanks to the Internet (and CompuServe’s long-forgotten Anime/Manga Forum), you could say that fandom has really become my life. My passion for anime and manga led me to co-create Animefringe: Online Anime Magazine back in 1999, which formally debuted on January 1, 2000 and enjoyed an amazing six-year run.

If it wasn’t for Animefringe, I doubt I would be where I am right now. It really opened a lot of doors for me. It allowed me to work on manga titles like Love Hina, A.I. Love You, G Gundam and Pita-Ten as the rewriter doing the English Adaptation, and I also got to freelance for magazines like Anime Insider. In fact, it’s eventually what led me to Seven Seas and Aoi House.

Rasmussen : I take it you have a love for Manga/Anime, and it might have come prior to Aoi House or Seven Seas. If so tell us how you got into the genre and what your favorite series are?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Oh yes, I'm a huge otaku and have been for almost ten years now. I like collecting things, so anime and manga are a big part of that. I’m also really into American comic books, video games, action figures, and DVD collecting in general, though.
As for my favorite anime series... I’d probably have to say Tenchi Muyo, El Hazard, Sailor Moon, Azumanga Daioh, and Revolutionary Girl Utena. In terms of manga, Oh My Goddess is my all-time favorite.

Rasmussen : Take us back to the launch of Aoi House. It’s January 24th, 2005 and Aoi House has just launched. Tell us about the day Aoi House launched (what happened) and the weeks after as it slowly began to sink in how your fanbase were reacting to this series that you said (in Aoi House Volume 1) that even you didn’t know how a “Harem series” would be taken by readers.
Mr. Adam Arnold : When Aoi House originally launched with art by Jim Jimenez in that initial 36-episode run, Seven Seas wasn’t really sure if people would take to the concept of a harem comedy about American anime fans, and were even less sure that it would sell in book form. So, that uncertainty is really what forced me to scale back the storyline and write the title in a gag-a-day style where each week was basically a self-contained mini-arc. The readers of Gomanga.com latched onto the concept pretty much instantly and were begging for more. It was no longer about “would a collection of this even sell,” but rather, “when can we do a collection and how can we make it work?”

As fate would have it, Jim had other work lined up and couldn’t commit to doing a full book, and Shiei (artist of Amazing Agent Luna) was a huge fan of the series and was more than willing to take over. Shiei coming on board is really what made us decide to relaunch (and, in some cases, rethink) the series from scratch in May 2006 and have the ultimate aim be to publish the collected volumes in a year’s time. I’d say that everything really turned out really well in the end.

Rasmussen : How different was the styles of Aoi House's art style (and thus mood and feel of it's visuals) from Jim Jimenez to present Artist Shiei? And if fate turned different (and Jim continued on as Artist) how do you think Aoi House's relaunch would have been different than it's present incarnation under its new artist?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Jim’s style was a bit more geared towards an American comic book style, and a lot of Aoi House’s current appeal has to do with Shiei’s distinctly cute art style that really complements the story and characters. Obviously, Aoi House is a harem comedy, but it’s also very rooted in fandom. Shiei shares the same kind of love for anime and manga that I do, so it’s really easy for me to toss in references or ask Shiei to draw something and for her to instantly get what I’m going for.

Rasmussen : Tenchi Muyo or Love Hina, which of these series does Aoi House gets compared against too much (be it fairly or unfairly), and what do you say to critics/reviewers and the like who make the comparison without really taking the time to judge the series on it’s own merits?
Mr. Adam Arnold : It gets compared to Love Hina quite a bit. I also used to see some Genshiken comparisons, but those seem to have disappeared. I don’t really mind the comparisons, actually. I’m writing a harem comedy. It’s pretty hard NOT to compare it to other harem titles. In fact, I’ve intentionally thrown in a few Love Hina homages before, so it really doesn’t bug me.

Rasmussen : The birth of the print version of Aoi House. How did that finally come about and were there any difficulties bringing the series from the web to print?
Mr. Adam Arnold : When we relaunched the series in May 2006, our aim was for Aoi House to eventually be published. So the way the script was written and the series was being drawn was really dictated by that decision. Instead of writing panel-by-panel, I was now just writing a screenplay showing the basic scenes and dialogue and Shiei would become like a director bringing the scenes to life in the best possible way for the audience. The best thing about Shiei is she has this knack for pacing that she can have something great happen every day, so whether you’re reading the online version or the final book, you’ll get something out of each experience. So there really weren’t any major difficulties in the transition since we were creating the series for its ultimate print form from the get go.

Rasmussen : You mentioned in Aoi House Volume 1 that your original concept for Aoi House was retooled because of Ted Naifeh’s Unearthly (which was in the works). Now that Unearthly has come out, and you had the possibility to compare notes, have you found any similarities between your original concept and Unearthly to warrant the change, or was original concerns about the two titles being too similar unwarranted in retrospect?
Mr. Adam Arnold : The only real comparison was that both Unearthly and my original anime club concept were shoujo love triangle titles. It’s more of a case where Seven Seas liked one aspect of the proposal (the anime club part), but not actual plot surrounding it. So, Seven Seas asked if I could make it more shonen and that’s really how the harem comedy part came about.

Rasmussen : How much research did you have to do in order to bring to life a “Yaoi” Anime fan club? Did you actually have any contacts amongst real Yaoi fanclubs, used a general interest Anime fanclub as basis for a Yaoi one or was this all off the top of your head in terms of the club and their “habits”?
Mr. Adam Arnold : It was all really off the top of my head. I’ve been in fandom long enough and been tortured enough by yaoi fangirls to know some of the sick and twisted things that go on behind closed doors...

Rasmussen : Seven Seas doesn’t seem to have any Anime ambitions as far as I’ve seen, but with a 36 “episode” line-up you‘ve spoken on (with episodes probably at the least the length of really short Panda Z episodes which did earn it’s own DVD series that is hinted at in Volume 2 of Aoi House) will you ever bend to possible fan interest and seek an Anime house in order to release Aoi House the Animated Series? If so which of the major powers (ADV, BANDAI, CPM, Geneon, TOKYOPOP, etc) would you consider shopping the series with (short of waiting for Seven Seas to launch their own Anime brand)?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Aoi House will probably more like 26 or so chapters (i.e. “Episodes”) spread across four books, but I couldn’t really say if the manga will ever get turned into a full-blown anime series. The obstacles to get something like that done are pretty darn high. It’d be awesome if someone was interested in doing it, but I’m not holding my breath. That said, Seven Seas recently released its own flash animation music video for Aoi House set to the theme song for the series “Itsumo Futaride.” The flash has performed amazingly well for us with over 160,000 views in the first week alone.

Rasmussen : Oops. Completely forgot. Related question to the Aoi House the Animated Series question. Before you (fictionally) shop for a releaser you would have needed a studio to do the animation first! So then, if you were (in theory) shopping for an animation house what would be on the top of your list as to who you'd court Aoi House around to (and why)? (Also would your taste in Anime right now influence who'd you like to see on your wishlist of people working on Aoi House the Animation in any sense?)
Mr. Adam Arnold : We’re talking about in terms of Japanese animation studios? I think the obvious choices would be places like Madhouse, Gonzo, Production I.G., and Gainax. I enjoy anime in general, though. So even though you might have one company doing a show, a lot of the more specialized parts of the work get farmed out to other companies. So what you end up with is a bit of a hodgepodge of studios under one core banner. So I’m not picky.

Rasmussen : Back to the previous question on a different tact. Aoi House was originally to be 36 episodes, only now you said it'll be at the end 26? What happened to 10 episodes worth of content? Were they just joined together to form larger episodes, or removed for one reason or another? And if they were removed why (and will we ever see the "lost" content ever again)?
Mr. Adam Arnold : The original webmanga drawn by Jim Jimenez was 36 pages, but I called them “episodes” since they were run 3 times a week. When the series got relaunched with Shiei, I decided to use the word “Episode” in place of the word “Chapter” as I was writing the series a whole chapter at a time. I’ve never really settled on an exact number of chapters I’ll write, though. It’ll probably end up being around 26 or so episodes/chapters.

As for “lost” content, there really isn’t any since I haven’t written it yet. Sure, there are some scenes that I just never used, but not whole chapters worth of content. I don’t have a master property bible written for what all I’m going to include, I just have the beats I want to cover in my head and I pretty much write from there.

Rasmussen : Another tact from the previous question, this time concerning the music video mentioned (Aoi House the Music Video). Can you tell us how that came about, and what kind of work went into its creation?
Mr. Adam Arnold : If I recall correctly, I ran the idea by Jason right before Anime Expo and he was all for it. The basic idea I had was that we take the “Itsumo Futaride” theme song that The J Brothers had created for Aoi House back in 2005 and do a three minute music video in the style of an anime opening. We ran the idea past our in-house flash guy, Jonathan Talas (Atan), and he was all for it. Atan is also a big fan of the series, so he already knew what scenes he’d like to include and it was just a matter of taking the time to animate them in Macromedia Flash 8.

It took about four months to make and there were two completely different openings made that were dropped. Nothing was really wasted, though. Most of these cut scenes can be seen during the last seconds of the video when you see the moving background stripes with scenes in them. Overall, the production on the flash was pretty smooth. It just took a long, long time to draw enough scenes to fill three minutes and twelve seconds.

Rasmussen : Hollywood seems to be shopping around all over the place to grab any short story children's book, comic/Manga/Manhwa/OEL Manga/etc, video games or whatever license out there to make a movie. Be it good, bad or terrible. So then, question, let's say in theory Hollywood is about to come knocking at your door next week (whenever) because they need another comic based movie and they want Aoi House… would you take the offer or send them packing? And if you do take the offer what stipulations must be in any contract (how much control must you have over the property) before you entrust it to Hollywood?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Seven Seas is represented by Circle of Confusion, a Hollywood-based management company that also represents the Wachowski Brothers, so I'd let Jason DeAngelis (President of Seven Seas), who is close friends with them, handle any of the Hollywood stuff. As for control, I’m really hands-off, so whomever Hollywood/Japan/etc would hire is free to do what they think is best for the medium they’re bringing the property to.

Rasmussen : Hints of a rival “Yuri House” have been dropped in Volume 2, will we see this rival faction in print (in the Con Caper volume for instance) soon if they haven‘t already appeared in the online version yet, and what can you tell us about the rival organization that nobody knows yet?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Um...they like yuri...?
But yes, some form of a rival club will show up in the next book called Aoi House: The Great Con Caper. I’m still writing it right now, so I’m not really one to tell a lot of spoilers. I will give you this analogy, though... If you think of Aoi House as like a big network reality show, then their rival would be the FOX rip-off. So it’s kind of like the “what if” they met.

Rasmussen : Speaking of Con Caper does that mean there’ll be no Aoi House Volume 3 (with the Con Caper one shot counting as the third volume) or will that come at a later date?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Aoi House: The Great Con Caper will pick up a few days after the end of Aoi House Vol. 2 and will follow the gang as they head off to experience the big anime convention called Hatsu-Con. The book does count as the third book in the series, but it will be its own stand-alone book while also having the natural progression of the existing storyline. If I were to use an anime analogy to describe the overall arc of the series, Aoi House Vol. 1 and 2 to be like the initial 13-episode TV series, Aoi House: The Great Con Caper would be the movie, and then the untitled fourth book would be the concluding OVA series.

Rasmussen : Are you familiar with another anime convention themed Manga from TOKYOPOP, Svetlana Chmakova's Dramacon? If so what is your impression of this title (which is wrapping it's run three months after Aoi House's convention one shot)?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Actually, I haven’t read Dramacon, so I couldn’t really say.

Rasmussen : Also why does it take so long (Christian Gossett The Red Star long) between volumes of the book to publish?
Mr. Adam Arnold : The main difference between original manga and licensed manga is that we don’t have the luxury of having installments published in magazines on a regular basis. If you ignore the Japanese weekly anthologies and only focus on the monthly titles, though...it’s not that uncommon for a new Japanese tankouban to come out six to twelve months after the previous one. Keep in mind that when licensed manga like Kashimashi come over to North America, the series is already well into its run, so it takes less time to localize a volume than it does to create a new series from scratch.

Rasmussen : Hypothetical question. Aoi House the final book comes onto shelves, the series closes it's doors once and for all and fans realize it's over (last call, Cheers is closed, the cast of Voyager just returned to Earth, Buffy the TV Series rides off into the sunset, etc etc etc). In theory do you expect a great outcry from the fan base for more, or do you think the series will be missed but allowed to come to it's conclusion gracefully with a minimal of fuss or begging/pleading for more from fans?
Mr. Adam Arnold : I think I’m about a year away from having to worry about that, but I’d hope the ending leaves people wanting more.

Rasmussen : OK, then, different tangent. Once the series is done, do you think this title might leave an impression on you?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Who knows. Only time will tell, really.

Rasmussen : Ok, let me emphasis that for a second if I may. Think you might ever go on convention runs, oh, let’s say 10 or so years down the line (as a specific example to a point) and catch yourself waxing nostalgic over the title while being a guest speaker at anime conventions, or will it just fade away as the years pass until you finally say "Aoi what?"(?)
Mr. Adam Arnold : It’s hard for me to imagine what I’ll be doing next week, let alone ten years from now.

Rasmussen : OK then, how about life after Aoi House. Once the series is done what is next for you as a creator? Any particular titles on your mind right now after that or are you going to stick to your production duties over at Seven Seas exclusively for the time being post Aoi House?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Again, I’m probably a year away from having to worry about that, so I don’t really think about it all that much. I’d like to eventually write something else, but I can honestly say that I have absolutely no clue what that will be yet.

Rasmussen : Strange question. Whatever happened to the Y in Yaoi House’s sign? It is only said that it “Fell off” but it is seemingly hinted that its disappearance was more malicious than accidental. Any comment?
Mr. Adam Arnold : I’ll let the fans speculate about that for now.

Rasmussen : Huh? But I’m just going to ask again in 2008 or so when Aoi House concludes and… oh, I guess we’ll find out then won’t we. Never mind. A few industry related questions then.

At present the only real rivals to Seven Seas in the Manga market (in concerns to titles that didn’t come from the Asia side of the coin like Japan, Korea, etc) seems to be Antarctic and TOKYOPOP. Do you see these companies as rivals, and if so what is Seven Seas planning in 2007 to compete against these two companies in the OEL Manga market in terms of releases and merchandising?
Mr. Adam Arnold : We here at Seven Seas are really marching to the beat of a different drum when it comes to our originals. We have a formula that works and works well, so we're not all that concerned with what other companies are doing.

Rasmussen : In light of the recent alleged plagiarism accusations that were briefly raised during TOKYOPOP’s last Rising Stars of Manga competition (involving a title called Samurai Zombie if I remember right which was accused of being an alleged plagiarism of Dark Horse’s Blade of the Immortal) what is your position on alleged plagiarism (either accidental or deliberate) in the works of new manga creators, and what can be done to curtail or discourage this alleged act (either deliberately or accidentally) in the new generation of manga creators up and coming?
Mr. Adam Arnold : I don’t really think there is anything that can be done about it. I mean, creators naturally look to other works for inspiration. I think it’s really up to each individual creator to be honest and know where the boundaries lie.

Rasmussen : A day in your life. Tell us about a typical day at work for you.
Mr. Adam Arnold : I changes all the time. I generally spend much of my day at my computer answering e-mails, making sure version stages of production (translation, rewrite, copy editing, lettering, layout, etc) are coming along as they should, reviewing scripts, moderating the forum, preparing web site updates, and so on. I think the hardest thing to fit into my schedule is time to just sit down and write my own stuff as I have so much else I need to get done.

To stay sane, I tend to watch DVDs or recent TV shows, read American comic books, or play video games. When I get away from it all, I tend to hit the mall and other stores to shop for more stuff to collect...and to hit the arcade and play a few rounds of maniac doubles in Dance Dance Revolution SuperNova.

Rasmussen : If possible can you tell us a bit about the lineup scheduled for 2007 from Seven Seas and what we can look forward to in terms of upcoming releases that you have coming down the line?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Seven Seas has really been expanding in the last year and we’re really going to see that come to fruition in 2007. In April/May, we’ll be launching our Light Novel line which includes the titlesBallad of a Shinigami, Gun Princess, Kanokon, Pita-Ten, Strawberry Panic, and Vamp! These books are going to be sized in the small pocket book size like their Japanese counterparts and be priced at $7.95. We’re basically giving manga fans their first true taste of how Light Novels are supposed to be experienced.
In addition to our light novels, we're also launching our Strawberry line of yuri manga that includes titles like Saigo no Seifuku, Tetragrammaton Labyrinth and the Strawberry Panic manga. And we have a number of top titles joining Kashimashi ~Girl Meets Girl~ in our core manga line-up including He is My Master, Sota-kun and Venus Versus Virus. On top of all this, we have more originals coming out like Hollow Fields, Moonlight Meow, The Outcast and others. So, a fun and exciting year to look forward to, with more surprise announcements to come!

Rasmussen : Final question on Aoi House. Is there any series out there now that you'd recommend to fans of Aoi House (I.e. if you loved Aoi House you'll love (blank)…)?
Mr. Adam Arnold : If you loved Aoi House you’ll love... fandom titles like Comic Party, Genshiken and Otaku no Video, and harem comedies like Love Hina, Ai Yori Aoshi, and Tenchi Muyo.

Rasmussen : Any final words for our readers?
Mr. Adam Arnold : Um... it’s okay to ignore your parents when they tell you to get a “real” job.