Q1. Can you define “four people creating together”?

–There is a lot of things you might fail to realize by yourself, but since you have the point of view of a second person, or a third person, you are able to find out there are other things as well. Following this idea you may think the more people you have is better but, at one point, if you have too many people in, everything starts to become vague. At least in our case. We think this kind of “wisdom of crowds” works out because we are a team of four.

–We think that, as professionals, we have learned a bit, about how to behave when having a meeting with people from outside. But in the inner side, the relationship between the four of us has not changed a bit. It is really the same as it was in our debut. But this is not something bad, you may say is rather one of the good things about CLAMP.

–We think is our environment that allows that when somebody is having a hard time and saying “I’m screwed”, somebody will cheer them up, or corner them up saying “No you you are not. Let’s do it”. There is no time to worry, we have a deadline! (laughs)

–We think is big that the 4 of them can actually do the checking. It’s like a “quality control net” to maintain a certain level of quality. Is not just a simple reduction of errors. For example if somebody draws a character with a mermaid dress, somebody may say “this character is not much of a mermaid, right? Don’t you think this other idea fits the character better? This kind of one-time consultation before presenting it to the client is maybe something that we are able to do because there are four of us.

–Since we are four, everything multiplies by four. Inputs, as well as outputs. For example, we all have diffents things we like, for movies, or plays, etc, so we input to each other about what the others may not have watched, or things others may have not noticed. We share through a LINE group of the four of us things like “oh today this interesting thing happened” as well as cute videos of dogs or cats from social media, etc. Just things like that. Sometimes we deliberately go out and search for interesting stuff to send on the LINE group as well (laughs)

Q2. What does it mean to continue through 35 years?

— We think we were able to continue through this 35 years because we were able to “unify our wills”. It’s not like each one of us just does the things we want to do. We reconcile ideas, and the four of us work in the same vector. We think in our case that explains a lot.

–As for work-related aspects, we try all the time to bear in mind that we are receiving a request. Because the things we draw or write for ourselves, for our own fun, and the things we draw or the stories we write for our work are completely separated. So the fact that somebody sees what we have been creating until now for work and decide to ask us to do a new project is maybe the biggest motivation.

— If there is a CLAMP WORLD that we have created during these 35 years, we want to feel the gratitude and the weight of it. The fans, the readers have love for each one and every one of the characters. A lot more that we can imagine. At a point not even ourselves are capable of fully understanding that love. We may be able to finally understand that weight if we sneak secretly in the exhibition and look at everyone’s reactions when looking at the pictures.

— Initially, we bumped into each other a lot. At the time of our debut, we were exploring each other. If somebody told us to “fix something” we would take it as if we were being told to “fix our lives”. But that wasn’t it, “I’m not talking about your life, I am talking about the tale of this character”. (laughs). Right now, those kind of things don’t happen anymore. We think we now understand how to explain or present to each other. The communication has become smoother. That kind of thing may have changed, yes, but the relationship between the four of us, our roots haven’t changed in these 35 years. It’s the same since the day we met. Those days in which we still didn’t know a lot of things.

Q3. What is the “style” that is the trademark of CLAMP?

— The story we want to tell comes first. And then we decide on the medium. We want to do things that haven’t been tried before. We come from the school of wanting to place things where there is not really a place to put them yet. That is why the four of us search everyday for interesting things.

— Once we make a decision inside the story, it cannot be reversed. If we don’t pursue that rule and that idea, it will become unviable. This applies to the stories, but it also aplies to the artistic materials as well. If we decide that “this series is going to be drawn using a ballpoint pen”, then we will savor to the fullest that world drawn with a ballpoint pen. We think that the way we relate with the artistics materials is also interesting.

— As for this current stage we are in, we would like to maintain as much as possible the parts that are manually drawn. We think that even if there are gaps or blurs in the lines, that is part of the characteristics of that creator.

— Is not about how to bring out certain flavor, because is going to come out anyways. It’s like deciding on “Kelp soup stock or bonito soup stock?” (laughs). If you ask us, it is going to taste like a CLAMP soup. We understand that, if you ask us from CLAMP to draw or write something, because it is us, CLAMP, you want us to draw/write something CLAMP-like.

— The lines that our characters say, as we thought, are not about how the authors thinks about something. It’s rather about how the character tells those lines inside the story. If you just put the words out there, they are going to be easily forgotten. It will not remain. Which character said those words, when they said it, and why they said is what matters. We would be honored if those words reach or resonate at least a little bit to someone.

Q4. What kind of “future” you want to create?

— It’s not that we are only asked to draw comics. We are also asked to write scrips, draw illustrations, or do character designs. You may say that right now we are in an unusual position. But, this may become the natural image of an artist in the future. We would be really happy if if we are able to stay as artists like that. Remembered by people saying “Oh, CLAMP was doing this stuff”.

— We have been using different artistic materials for different works, but someday we would like to be able to create one story with one single pen. G-pen, mapping pen, glass pen, it could be any pen. There are a lot of digital tools too, and that is wonderful as well. With really just one single pen. This as well is one of the “futures” of CLAMP.

–It does not end with the 35th Anniversary.
5 years later, 10 years later, even with a different form, like a CLAMP Exhibition or something different is going to be held. We would like to be that kind of “creative group”.

Translated from Japanese by Claudio.

Source

Interview shared as part of the CLAMP Exhibition, held at the National Art Center, Tokyo, Japan, from July 3rd to September 23rd, 2024.