✿ Sugiura Shiho on Silver Diamond
These translations are not mine. They were done by the awesome insaneneko. I'm only posting the bits that are relevant to Chigusa, but you can find the full entries here.
Pafu - November 2005
Q: Did you have any problems with the characters?
S: I ended up changing Chigusa's character quite a bit [within the story], and he was hard to grasp. He was a rather unemotional type, and because he was like that I couldn't understand him easily. Until around volume 3 I had to think very hard when I drew him. I finally felt like I more or less got him by then. Everyone else is fairly normal, so it's working out.
Q: You said earlier that Chigusa was difficult to grasp, but are there other characters that you found hard to draw?
S: In general, everyone other than Chigusa is easy to draw. With Chigusa, it was hard because I couldn't draw his expressions if I didn't understand him. I didn't have that problem with the other characters very much.
Q: In your works, there are characters that have an emptiness inside where they are lacking something, regardless of whether the character wants it that way or not, such as Blood in Koori no Mamono, Chigusa in Silver Diamond, or Icchan in Isagi-Kojima. And there is a character that fills that void, such as Ishuca or Rakan. Do you have some kind of hankering to include this situation in your stories?
S: I think it's something like a habit of mine when I create stories. It's probably easier for me to write when a character like that is in it. To fill that missing part in a character is fun, and I like seeing a character with a deficiency become a rounder person as they change.
It's not that I'm sympathetic to characters like that. If I become too involved with the characters I won't be able to write the story, so I watch myself.
Q: Are you drawn to characters that lack something?
S: Perfect people are boring. In that respect, I like deficient characters. I like personalities and individualities that are created with something lacking....And it may be that I feel a fascination about them (laugh).
Pafu - December 2008
-According to Sugiura-sensei, Rakan sees Chigusa as "honest" and "open," a "friend" (as opposed to "pervert" or "weirdo" like the other characters XD). She plans on developing that relationship further, so stay tuned.
-Chigusa can't read people's minds, but he can sense the aura or atmosphere around people. He puts that aura together with a chart in his head that associates certain auras with certain emotions and figures out what a person is feeling. It's something all people do, he just can do it much better.
-When asked if there were characters that "acted on their own" or wouldn't easily get moving, Sugiura-sensei mentioned the Prince and Chigusa. She hadn't planned on the Prince cutting his own throat, but when it happened she agreed that he totally would've. Chigusa often ends up looking out quietly from behind in everyday life, but when she makes him say something he never says something reasonable...
-Sugiura-sensei apologizes to each of the four main character: Rakan, for not drawing him in cooking scenes more. Chigusa, for writing him as more like a chick (baby chicken) instead of the black panther she'd intended to. Narushige, for turning him into a mother-in-law type instead of the cool, gorgeous, smart young man she'd meant to. Touji, for intending to have him teased from the beginning and actually going through with it. And as a bonus, Kinrei, for always putting him in the same clothes. She'd wanted to put him brighter colored clothing, but he is laughably unsuited for such things.
-Sugiura-sensei thinks Chigusa is the character that's grown the most, even though he's still incomplete as he's without his memories.
Pafu - November 2005
Q: Did you have any problems with the characters?
S: I ended up changing Chigusa's character quite a bit [within the story], and he was hard to grasp. He was a rather unemotional type, and because he was like that I couldn't understand him easily. Until around volume 3 I had to think very hard when I drew him. I finally felt like I more or less got him by then. Everyone else is fairly normal, so it's working out.
Q: You said earlier that Chigusa was difficult to grasp, but are there other characters that you found hard to draw?
S: In general, everyone other than Chigusa is easy to draw. With Chigusa, it was hard because I couldn't draw his expressions if I didn't understand him. I didn't have that problem with the other characters very much.
Q: In your works, there are characters that have an emptiness inside where they are lacking something, regardless of whether the character wants it that way or not, such as Blood in Koori no Mamono, Chigusa in Silver Diamond, or Icchan in Isagi-Kojima. And there is a character that fills that void, such as Ishuca or Rakan. Do you have some kind of hankering to include this situation in your stories?
S: I think it's something like a habit of mine when I create stories. It's probably easier for me to write when a character like that is in it. To fill that missing part in a character is fun, and I like seeing a character with a deficiency become a rounder person as they change.
It's not that I'm sympathetic to characters like that. If I become too involved with the characters I won't be able to write the story, so I watch myself.
Q: Are you drawn to characters that lack something?
S: Perfect people are boring. In that respect, I like deficient characters. I like personalities and individualities that are created with something lacking....And it may be that I feel a fascination about them (laugh).
Pafu - December 2008
-According to Sugiura-sensei, Rakan sees Chigusa as "honest" and "open," a "friend" (as opposed to "pervert" or "weirdo" like the other characters XD). She plans on developing that relationship further, so stay tuned.
-Chigusa can't read people's minds, but he can sense the aura or atmosphere around people. He puts that aura together with a chart in his head that associates certain auras with certain emotions and figures out what a person is feeling. It's something all people do, he just can do it much better.
-When asked if there were characters that "acted on their own" or wouldn't easily get moving, Sugiura-sensei mentioned the Prince and Chigusa. She hadn't planned on the Prince cutting his own throat, but when it happened she agreed that he totally would've. Chigusa often ends up looking out quietly from behind in everyday life, but when she makes him say something he never says something reasonable...
-Sugiura-sensei apologizes to each of the four main character: Rakan, for not drawing him in cooking scenes more. Chigusa, for writing him as more like a chick (baby chicken) instead of the black panther she'd intended to. Narushige, for turning him into a mother-in-law type instead of the cool, gorgeous, smart young man she'd meant to. Touji, for intending to have him teased from the beginning and actually going through with it. And as a bonus, Kinrei, for always putting him in the same clothes. She'd wanted to put him brighter colored clothing, but he is laughably unsuited for such things.
-Sugiura-sensei thinks Chigusa is the character that's grown the most, even though he's still incomplete as he's without his memories.