Takehiko Inoue, the author of acclaimed manga Slam Dunk, Vagabond, and Real, recently gave an interview owing to the release of the Slam Dunk movie, for which he served as a director.

In the interview, Inoue talked in depth about the manga that he created, including Vagabond. The author said that when he started drawing Vagabond, he wanted to created something entirely different from his previous manga, Slam Dunk.

“For Vagabond, I wanted to do something completely different from Slam Dunk….I wanted to draw something that was the opposite,” Inoue said in the interview. “The only reason I drew Vagabond was to take the audience into the world I was taken to.”

However, he started drawing Real the same time he was working on Vagabond, because he also wanted to depict someone who was close to reality.

“Vagabond is a world away from the present day. It is a more spiritual world. I wanted to depict someone who is close to reality, someone who could be found anywhere in the world. Having said that, I dove back into the world of wheelchair basketball, a world that seems familiar to me but is unfamiliar.”

Inoue further added that he wouldn’t have been able to develop his work in such a manner if he hadn’t worked on the historical manga. He was of the opinion that Vagabond broadened his horizons and he couldn’t wait to start drawing it again, suggesting that the manga might resume sometime soon.

“It was a work that broadened my horizons in many ways, and…well, it’s not finished yet. I can’t wait to start drawing it again,” Inoue said.

However, we still do not have a fixed return date for the manga.

Vagabond manga began serialization in Kodansha’s seinen manga magazine Morning in September 1998, and its chapters have been collected into thirty-seven tankōbon volumes as of July 2014. It, however, is on an extended hiatus since 2015.

Vagabond won the 24th Kodansha Manga Award for Best General Manga as well as the Grand Prize of the 6th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2002.

The plot follows the Japanese swordsman Musashi Miyamoto. It is a fictional retelling based on the novel Musashi written by Eiji Yoshikawa.

Source: Slam Dunk movie official website