Messages to Kentarou Miura: Nico Nicholson (2)

Part 1 of this translation can be found here.

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Page 3

I had completed my storyboard with this (meeting)
Miura-sensei didn’t modify anything in it.

With this one-time coverage, I could decide in what direction my serialization should go.
And I think it sprouted inside of me the idea to be “one who continues to draw” as well.

I met him just a few times through my work.
However, these mere hours were such a big deal to me that they changed my life.

Miura: Each panel is a window through which we look into another world
That is what I want to draw.

To me, the window to another world was
The door of Sensei’s workshop on that day.

I’ve read “Berserk” since my teenage years
I couldn’t believe the day came when I could directly meet Sensei, who had drawn the work.

Nico Nicholson: This world has been connected to that world!!
I was on the reading side!!
(Now I’ve been) connected to the drawing side!!!
I learned of such a shock for the first time in my life.

11 years later
Now I’m on the drawing side.
I still am, somehow…

Page 4

Though I was often tired to not have talent
I haven’t quitted drawing
Maybe I’m no good

Miura: To draw manga, you should be conscious of the “shocks” in your mind and remember them preciously.
Because Sensei’s remark, that I heard when I covered him, was a great help to me.

The shock I got when I met him first
Miura: Welcome

The taste of the buckwheat tea

The smell of the paints in his workshop

The storyboards of Berserk that he willingly gave to me
Miura: You want these?
(They are kind of) industrial wastes?

I’ve treasured all of them
And they’re supports to me now.
Nico Nicholson: All right, I’ll draw!

Even now, I’m overwhelmed with various kinds of feelings, like bitterness and sadness, pain owing to the fact I can’t continue to read Berserk, and enormous gratitude.

However, I’ll remember all of them preciously.

Nico Nicholson
May 20th, 2021