Hello and welcome to an exciting interview. Today we welcome inori-sensei, creator of the I’m in Love With the Villainess series.

Over the years, I’ve been pleased to have interviewed some extraordinary creators here on Okazu. I’m especially pleased today because  ILTV, is a ground-breaking series. Riding the wave of isekai popularity, this series takes time to talk about very real issues in queer lives in Japan, and how queer folks have to deal with those issues.

It’s especially exciting to me that Comic Yuri Hime is running the manga of this series and choosing to engage with those issues. I’ve been reading Yuri for a long time, and it finally feels like CYH is ready to talk about queer people – and, even more importantly, show us in the Yuri stories we love.. ^_^

I hope you will please welcome inori-sensei with a warn Okazu welcome!

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Q1: Please Tell Us About Yourself

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I: Thank you for giving me this valuable opportunity. My name is inori, the author of I’m in Love with the Villainess. (ILTV)

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Q2: How did you become a writer? Was it something you wanted to do since you were young?

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I:  My becoming a writer was rather accidental. For health reasons, I was always taking care of my parents in a state close to being a NEET (Not in Employment, Education or Training), but the novel I wrote as a hobby was published commercially, and as a result I got a job as a writer.

…Even so, I have always wanted to be a writer since I was a student, and I have applied for a newcomer award sponsored by a light novel publisher.

The first time I applied, my work came in third for a fairly large award. “Maybe I have the aptitude” is what I have always thought.

Now that I can manage to eat just by writing, I’m really glad I can do that.

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Q3: Why did you begin writing Yuri?

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I:  There is no particular reason for me to write Yuri work; for some reason, when I try to write something, it naturally becomes a relationship between women. I have written a heterosexual story with a male protagonist, but it didn’t quite fit.

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Q4: Which artists have influenced you?

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I:  I’m not familiar with so-called general literary arts, but I’ve been reading light novels since I was a junior high school student. In particular, the work of a light novel writer named Shinobu Saeki has had a huge impact on me. She’s quite different from me in her style, but if I hadn’t read her work, I would never have been a writer like this now. Her work is still cherished on my bookshelf and I read it again from time to time.

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Q5: If you were not a novelist what kind of work would you be doing?

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I:  To be honest, I’m not very strong, so it would be quite difficult to work outside of being a writer. If ILTV hadn’t been published, I would still be dependent on my parents.

Since the world is a big place, I think I might have been able to so some kind of work but, in any case, I think I would have been forced to live a poorer life than I am now.

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Q6: Please tell us a little about your creative process. How long does it take to write a chapter?

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I:  As a commercial writer, my writing speed is uneven, and the time it takes to write one chapter is extremely unstable.

In the case of ILTV and She’s Such a Cheeky Commoner (SSCC), one chapter is about 30,000 to 40,000 characters in Japanese, but one chapter might have taken one week at the fastest and three months at the slowest. The maximum number of characters I have written in one day is about 100 sheets of 400-character manuscript paper.

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Q7: You began writing webnovels, ILTV is now a manga and a print novel. Can you tell us how it felt becoming popular?

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I:  At the beginning, ILTV seemed to be more popular overseas than in Japan. The very first commercial publication was, of course, in Japan, but it was only an ebook and was not well known, and sales were not particularly good.

After a while, English-speaking people such as Jingle and Angela, and Korean-speaking people such as 와타 오시 번역 did fan translation, and the readers who read them formed a fandom and supported them. Thanks to you, it has become more popular overseas.

These fandoms worked with publishers to release print novels in South Korea and then in North America. ILTV is now translated in 8 countries around the world. Against the background of this popularity, Comic Yuri Hime decided to serialize it – a great manga  with the power of a wonderful manga artist named Aonoshimo-sensei. As a result, it seems that the popularity of the series in Japan is gradually increasing, and in 2021 it was ranked 5th in the “Manga Ranking I Want to See Animated” at Anime Japan, one of the largest anime-related events in Japan.

At the end of last year, a long-awaited print novel in Japan was also released. In this way, the existence of ILTV is due to the fandom who supports me both at home and abroad. I would like to take this opportunity to thank you all again.

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Q8: Many fans wrote in to ask a question: How do you come up with ideas for characters? Fans were especially interested in the Demon Queen.

(This answer contain slight spoilers for Volume 5 of the series)

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I:  I think it’s a famous story for everyone who sees this interview, but the main character Rae has a model. My partner is Aki-san. She’s a very humorous person, so my first motivation was that I thought it would be fun to write a novel with such a person as the main character.

The next character to be born was Claire, who was in line with the genre of “villainess” that was used on the novel posting site Syousetsuka ni Narou (Let’s Become a Novelist) at that time. However, I didn’t think it would be fun for her to simply be a villain, so she was written as a character with conviction and aesthetics as a villain. Many of the other characters were created due to the needs of the story.

The Demon Queen you asked about was created as the most suitable character for writing Chapter 17 “The Truth of the World”. As a prototype, there was “Demon Queen” that appeared in my other work that was not released, but Demon Queen of ILTV was created as a character who burns themselves up from a love without salvation. The idea is that there is a gadget called “Looping World” came first, and from that gadget was born a cast that functions most effectively for the story, that is, “Daemon Queen” of ILTV.

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Q9: Do you read any Yuri? What kind of series do you read? ——————————————————————————————–

I:  I may not have read as much as you can imagine, but I think I have read a fair amount. I  read Maria-sama ga Miteru, which is famous as a classic, Bloom Into You, which sparked the recent Yuri boom, and Revolutionary Girl Utena in the old days.

Recently, I’m paying attention to The Demon Girl Next Door (まちカドまぞく, which is streaming on HIDIVE) by Izumo Ito. At first glance, it’s a loose four-frame manga, but in reality, it’s a very readable manga with a bold story hidden in the base. The second season of the anime The Demon Girl Next Door 2-chome (まちカドまぞく　２丁目) will also be broadcast this season, so please pay attention to it.

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 Q10: Do you have anything you’d like to ask your overseas fans?

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I would like to ask you: What do you want from the ILTV series and me?

Especially for the former, I sometimes hear requests for a promotional video, CD drama, animation, etc., but I haven’t really reached out to know how many of those voices are. I would be grateful if you could send what you want from the ILTV series to the Yuri Hime editorial department and GL Bunko. Here is the contact information, so please do not hesitate to contact them when your time and passion allow:

Yuri Hime editorial department: https://ichijinsha.co.jp/inquiry/yurihime/

 (Enter your name, email address, type of inquiry (* opinions / requests to the editorial department), inquiries from the top Contents) The form looks like this:

And you can write GL Bunko here: info@glnovel.com

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Q11: Your series has been translated in to many languages. Do you have a message for overseas fans?

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Thank you for your continued support. I’m really happy that “your support” is not a metaphor or mere flattery. There is a line in the commercial of the famous Japanese painkiller Bufferin that “half of Bufferin is made of kindness,” but, definitely “half of inori is made with the support of fans.”

ILTV Has come to a close, SSCC will continue a little longer. I would like to try new works, so please continue to support me.

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Thank you very much Sensei! I have written Comic Yuri Hime to tell them I would like an ILTV anime, and I hear that a lot of other people have done that, as well. We will continue to ask for that and other media. And of course support any new projects you start.

If readers want to offer direct support, also please consider subscribing to inori-sensei on Pixiv Fanbox: https://inori-0.fanbox.cc/.

And of course, you can support I’m in Love With the Villainess by buying both the light novels and manga from legitimate sources. Volume 5 of the Light Novels is on the way in late summer from Seven Seas! I can’t wait for you to read it. ^_^