About Tsugumi Ohba

[tenkensmile]

1/  Why does Tsugumi Ohba hide his/her identity? Do you think it's because he knew that "DN" was going to be a very controversial series

Comments

[fusakugyoku]

1) There's a lot of rumors about Ohba's real identity; it could be to distance Death Note from his/her previous works.
2) There's hints for either way-- for example, Ohba's portrait is rather feminine, and Tsugumi is more often a female name. The point about flat, awful female characters is good, but there are some female characters in Bakuman that are actually much better. I'm inclined to think that Ohba is a woman, personally, or is a man that wants people to guess he/she is a woman.
3) Often Jump has ways to send fan mail to mangaka if you look in the magazine. If you send things to Viz, they might get forwarded too.

[twyla_hime]

1. Lots of mangaka are rather private, not wanting to be photographed or reveal too much personal info about themselves. According to Ohba, he/she wasn't expecting the series to generate controversy or even deep thought. The Ohba interviews come across that he/she does seem to be skirting the issue of giving definite explanations and statements about the intention of the series, it's themes, or confirming whether reader interpretations are right/wrong. I find this is just the way mangaka can be, very polite, PC, not wanting to upset fans or take a hard stance on something

[tenkensmile]

Ohba's saying during the interview that he "wasn't expecting the series to generate controversy or even deep thought" was a lie, because he wanted us to think for ourselves and perhaps didn't want to tap on the debate. I don't believe "DN" was made for the sheer purpose of entertainment. Apparently, Ohba even had the characters in DN (such as Matsuda, Near, Aizawa, etc.) bring up moral issues in a very explicit fashion, so it's impossible that he didn't want us to think deeply about these stuff. You're right about Ohba's beating around the bush during interviews, though.

[twyla_hime]

Yeah, I'd rather not take the statement at face value either. It seems awful and unlikely to me that a story like Death Note would not have some deeper meaning. Even if having a gripping fast paced plot was his/her priority while writing, there's still all these powerful topics of morality, life/death, power, deception and other such themes that are driving the whole thing. They had these issues he/she wanted to get across, rhetorical questions to pose, etc...definitely.

The death penalty is still being practiced in Japan. So perhaps, if they were opposed to this, or interested in stimulating critical thinking about it, it would not be a good idea to let onto that fact? To be the author of a successful manga would put you in the spotlight a bit, and puts you a sensitive position where what you say is pretty important. I imagine his/her fanmail is lot more intense than what the authors of Naruto/Bleach/One Piece get. Heh...

[kurosaki_akane]

Good questions, this is an eternal mystery. I guess that the way female characters are portrayed might sound like they were created by a sexist man, but I'll personally keep believing that Tsugumi is a female unless real proof states otherwise.

[sayuri2023]

I would probably think Tsugumi is female, as well.

[serria]

I like to think of her(?) as female. Unfortunately in Japan, women also perpetuate stereotypes of "having their place". On the other hand, Ohba could have been making a statement about this, or just totally detached herself from the thoughts and actions of her characters to make the story less preachy.