Check out this special Q&A with Yasuhisa Hara, the creator of the hit manga sensation, Kingdom! Kingdom is one of Japan’s best-selling manga, winner of the 2013 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize and is now available in the U.S., for the first time ever. Get a sneak peek behind the scenes and into the inner workings of Hara sensei!

PLEASE NOTE SOME ANSWERS CONTAIN SPOILERS:

What inspired you to create such a wonderful story?

Yasuhisa Hara: I’ve always enjoyed historical war movies, but there haven’t been many manga in that genre. So I saw an opportunity there and thought, “I’m going to try to make a long-form manga around the theme of war.”

How excited are you now that Kingdom will be able to be read in English?

Yasuhisa Hara: Honestly, I’ve been waiting for 15 years. English-speakers have been leaving so many comments on social media telling me they want Kingdom to be published in English, and I’m like, “Hey, I’m waiting for it too!” From the very start of Kingdom’s run, I’ve always wanted as many people to read it as possible. I hope the English version will spread throughout the world and that more people will encounter, Kingdom.

In the time since Kingdom began its run, who has been your most favorite character to write?

Yasuhisa Hara: Kingdom has such a huge cast of characters, and whenever I’m writing each character, I empathize with them deeply and live their lives with them, so my favorite characters are always the ones I’m working on at that moment.

But if I was forced to answer with one character, it would be the protagonist, Xin.

Which character resonates with you the most (or is most similar to yourself)?

Yasuhisa Hara: That might have to be Li Mu. [laughs] But lately, other people tell me that I’m like Xin.

Do you have a favorite volume or chapter, or maybe one that left a particularly strong impression?

Yasuhisa Hara: I’d have to say that the biggest impressions are left by the stories that gave me the most trouble sticking-the-landing, such as Wang Yi’s death in volume 16 and Huan Yi’s death in volume 69. The former because he had become so strong I had a lot of trouble figuring out how anyone could beat him; the latter, because I really struggled to tease out what his hopes were.

Do you have any advice for someone who aspires to become a mangaka?

Yasuhisa Hara: Finish your stories to the end, even if you don’t think they’re good at the beginning. Improvement comes through repeated failures.

Before you started Kingdom, what made you want to study the Shiji (the Records of the Grand Historian)?

Yasuhisa Hara: Initially, I was intending to make a manga with a character who was a Chinese shaman. During my research into Chinese folk religions, I came across the Shiji and was captivated by how fascinating the histories were.

Why did you decide to model your protagonist after real-life General Li Xin?

Yasuhisa Hara: In the beginning, I thought to make Shi Huangdi (the first emperor of China) as the main character, but if he was the protagonist, the focus couldn’t have been the battle scenes that I wanted to draw. If the king personally fought in one battle after another, the story would become too fictional. So I searched for a main character who could go onto the battlefields in Shi Huangdi’s place. I landed on Li Xin (in Kingdom, just Xin). There isn’t much in the Shiji about Li Xin, but he became a general at a young age. In that case, he must have been especially talented, so I saw him as an easy place to put my protagonist. Shi Huangdi also became king at a young age, so I would be able to depict them at around the same age. That was the last piece I needed to make Li Xin my main character.

What is your process for filling in the Shiji’s historical record gaps?

Yasuhisa Hara: The great thing about depicting this period is that the many gaps in the historical record leave many places to insert dramatic stories. As for my process, I work backward. If the record says, “so-and-so died in battle in year such-and-such,” I construct the most dramatic story that leads to that character’s death.

Are there any particular battles or events, or even character moments (such as deaths) that were particularly difficult to write or draw?

Yasuhisa Hara: Wang Yi, Huan Yi, and Pang Nuan.

Since I already mentioned the first two, I’ll talk about Pang Nuan.

Kingdom has a lot of characters, but almost all of them have a clearly-defined, easy-to-understand code. But when I was introducing Pang Nuan into the story, my editor wanted me to try making a character so distant that even I, as the writer, didn't fully comprehend him. I did just that, but it was hard to understand why he wanted to be so much stronger than anyone else, and he became something like a destructive force of nature.

But when Pang Nuan was to be defeated, I wanted to clarify his motivation, and they had to be appropriately grand for the man who had beaten Wang Yi. His group, known as the path-seekers, devoted their lives to saving the world by hastening humanity’s evolution. It was an unusual methodology for the purpose of ending all warfare. But since warfare hasn’t ended, Pang Nuan must inevitably lose. Writing this part was especially hard because Pang Nuan wasn’t the kind of character to talk about himself, so I had to use flashbacks and Li Mu’s narration to convey that complicated subject.

Also, I didn’t especially enjoy writing Li Mu at first, but once his objectives came into focus, I grew to like him.

How far into the Shiji do you plan to cover in this story? Shi Huangdi isn’t very well regarded as an emperor, and after his death, there were intrigues and plots, and the destruction of the Terracotta Army, but how much of that do you plan to depict?

Yasuhisa Hara: My plan is to continue until the unification of China.

It’s true that the Shiji contains many grim accounts of Shi Haungdi, but those histories were written in the Han dynasty, after the Qin dynasty fell, so I think it’s important to give close attention to other writings as well.

How are you planning on handling the “darker side” of historical accounts of Shi Haungdi? Ying Zheng is a captivating character, but after the real-life man became emperor, there are accounts of his cruel and erratic behavior. Do you plan on touching upon that side of Shi Haungdi? Are you concerned about the possibility of destroying the character’s image in the minds of fans who have followed him ever since he was 13 years old?

Yasuhisa Hara: I want to preface my answer by saying that when reading the Shiji, we must be mindful of the fact that it was written during the Han dynasty after Qin fell, and so we need to compare and cross-check those accounts with other records. It’s true that when Kingdom began serialization, Shi Haungdi had a dark reputation, but even back then, there had been research from time to time which suggested a possibly different picture. This reversal of his reputation interested me, and I thought it would make for an entertaining manga, so I started the story with Ying Zheng in the mold of an enlightened ruler. And in the two decades since Kingdom began, more research has been made into Shi Haungdi, and the assessment of him as a wise ruler is becoming more mainstream.

Which character has been the most fun to draw? (Regardless of being currently alive or dead in the story.)

Yasuhisa Hara: I enjoyed drawing Wang Yi and his lieutenant Teng. I felt like I could always write them having a conversation. After Wang Yi’s death, drawing Teng was painful for a time, but when he started teasing Lu Wuwei, I started having fun drawing him again. I enjoy drawing characters who make a good combo.

More about Kingdom:

Xin’s journey begins when his friend Piao, another war orphan who imparts to Xin the same dream of becoming the Greatest Generals Under the Heavens, is offered a position in court in the capital. He leaves Xin behind to train on his own, and to meet him there one day. One fateful night, Piao returns bloodied and on the brink of death, with his dying words being for Xin to go meet a boy who turns out to look exactly like Piao. But this is no ordinary boy—it’s the king of Qin, Ying Zheng! And assassins are hot on his tail!

Don’t forget to pick up Kingdom, Vol. 1!