Hibiki author visits Hirate on the set...and is totally tongue-tied

Mangaka Yanamoto Mitsuharu 柳本光晴 is the one who first suggested Hirate Yurina was the right person to play Hibiki, the title character of his award-winning manga, in its film adaptation. He has finally gotten the chance to meet her, and here is a translation of his blog post about it.

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Going on a field trip to a Hibiki location

I went to visit a location-shoot for the Hibiki movie. I won't write too much, just be super brief.

I finally met Hirate Yurina. Before I met her, I went through all kinds of simulations: I'll say this, or I'll say that. Anyway, more than anything I was just nervous to be meeting an idol. And it was Hirate, whom I admire so much.

And it seemed that Hirate-san had said she liked the manga. This made me even more nervous.

It was a situation where it would be fine if when she saw me, she went "kyaa" and I went "waah!" and with our eyes never meeting....

But she was beautiful. The only thing I could say to Hirate-san was: "Uh... You're beautiful...." Super creepy.

But it seemed like a very happy shoot. And she really was beautiful. She was Hibiki. Her presence. She was amazing.




The actor playing Ryouta was tall and handsome. Really cool. The actress playing Rika, Ayaka Wilson, was also a pretty young woman, the exact type that makes me nervous. And I ended up saying something terribly rude. She was tremendously pretty, and really gave the feeling of a pretty young foreign girl: "Um, is it all right if I speak Japanese...?" The one playing Takaya...the name doesn't come to me. He was totally Takaya, with a tremendous hoodlum feeling.

Hirate-san is actually.... I had thought she was tall, but she didn't give that feeling at all. In any case, her face was small and she seemed slight. And she was always smiling.

I asked the editor if I could take a picture with her for my blog, and they said "absolutely not."

Director Tsukikawa, and the Touei rep on site [Touei is the film studio], both said that Hirate-san's Hibiki was a great success. Before the shooting, they were nervous about it, but had been able to get a wonderful, top-notch feeling in the shooting, it seems.

Itagaki-kun, who plays Ryouta, was 180cm tall [5'11"]. And the person playing Takaya was also tall.

Actually, that's very important. The people Hibiki fights against have to be big. I wanted them to be visually like that. In that, they accepted the way I had sketched it out.


But more than anything, really, Hirate-san's Hibiki, really, she was beautiful. I'm repeating myself. To meet Hirate-san today, I used KeyaKake [the Keyakizaka46 TV show] as my go-between to find out everything. And I did those simulations, thinking about saying this or saying that.

But the only thing I said was: "You're beautiful."

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Here's a picture of Yanamoto-sensei (left) receiving his award for the best manga of 2017, in March. He said that people who know him say that he himself has some of Hibiki in him.

 Here's something from the manga, showing how Hibiki fights -- no holds barred:

mangaka's blog
awards story