The thing that I admire about works of fiction about sports is that they have really deep bonds between athletes that are different from romantic feelings. I wanted to write respectfully about that world of theirs that’s totally beyond my reach.

The general outlines for the story were all finished last year, but as I fleshed out the drafts, the characters took on a life of their own much more than I expected, and I got the feeling things were just starting to move where the characters wanted it to go! A phenomenon occurred where the lines between reality and the will of the characters blurred, and when I talked with the director, Yamamoto, about it, we were like, “Well, we’re not drawing the story at this point. This is just what the characters want, so it can’t be helped!” (laughs)