What were the influences, the inspirations that led you to work in the manga world?

Number 8: I had worked as an editor and therefore I had the obligation to create works, and that was the beginning.

Shinichi Ishizuka: I've always liked reading stories, especially those that stir our emotions. I always wanted to create something, in this case through manga. That's why I wanted to become a professional manga author.

We haven't seen much crossover between jazz and manga here, so I'd like to ask you where this interest in jazz comes from.

Ishizuka: I've always liked jazz, and when we talked about jazz with Number 8, I told him about the ideas I had in my head, and I don't know if I convinced him completely at that time, but he gave me the go-ahead, and we decided to create a work to introduce jazz as well as to talk about young people.

Do jazz and manga make a good combination? Especially considering that manga, unlike anime, doesn't have sound. How do you manage to represent sound through manga?

Number 8: As you said, it's quite a challenge to represent music through drawings. To tell you the truth, we didn't have much confidence at first. But thanks to Ishizuka-san's talent, he was able to express different kinds of music, different musical expressions. And even though he faced difficulties, he continued to update his techniques to express this kind of musical art.

Congratulations on what he has achieved.

(Laughter)

Both: Thank you very much.

Number 8: Several Japanese readers have said that they could hear the sound through the manga, so I'm very happy to hear that.

Can you recommend any jazz albums?

Ishizuka: When we came up with the title, we were thinking of this record, Giant Steps by John Coltrane, and we made a play on words for the title, also linking it to the first name of the main character, who is called Dai, which means "big" in Japanese.

Number 8: The soundtrack of the Blue Giant anime.

Ishizuka: Nowadays, there are many audiovisual works that use officially released music, but in our case, we used live recordings. We want you to enjoy it.

Is this your first time in Barcelona?

Number 8: Fourth time.

Ishizuka: Second time.

Oh, many times. What were you looking forward to this time?

Number 8: Yesterday we went to the beach and we really liked it. The Olympic Port. And there was a little street near Plaça Catalunya... There were second-hand shops.

Ishizuka: I actually bought this jacket (laughs).

Maybe Carrer Tallers, there used to be a lot of record stores on that street.

Number 8: Yeah, we actually saw stores selling records. It was a lot of fun.

Should jazz be listened to digitally or on vinyl?

Ishizuka: Jazz fans always say you should listen to it on vinyl, but I personally think it is pretty good on digital these days, so it doesn't matter.

That would be it, thank you very much.

Both (in Spanish): ¡Muchas gracias!