1) What made you interested in writing about the hearing impaired?

There were a lot of hearing impaired people around me at the time, so the topic came to me naturally.

2) Did you have to do a lot of research about the hearing impaired for the book?

I learned quite a lot about their struggles through my relationships with hearing impaired friends and acquaintances. I also learned a lot of things by visiting a sign language school.

3) A feature film is about to be released! Does the film differ much from the books? How did it feel to see your work as a motion picture? Tell us more!

The film depicted the difficulties related to hearing loss very well, in ways that simply aren’t possible in the manga medium, and I think that gives the audience an excellent feel for Kohei’s perspective. That deeper focus on Kohei’s emotions and struggles also helps communicate just how important Taichi and Yoko’s existence are to him. But most of all I was glad to see how cute Kohei and Taichi were together.

4) It looks like you also released a manga, Saraba, Yoki Hi, under the pen name Yuki Akaneda. Is there a reason you wanted to release this under a separate name?

Saraba, Yoki Hi is different genre than I Hear the Sunspot. I didn’t want to create preconceived notions about the content based on my name, but other than that there was no other reason.