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Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Creator Shares Inspiration For Manga's Racially Diverse Setting

Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! creator Sumito Ōwara shared his inspiration for the racially diverse setting of the school depicted in the manga. In a tweet posted on Monday, Ōwara wrote in English: "I was attending a public elementary school. There were Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Americans, Iranians, Brazilians, Egyptians and Nigerians. Those are normal. And there were various skin colors, religions, and various names."

Ōwara went on: "I don't know nationality by name, I don't know nationality by skin color. Some Japanese have dark skin. Some Japanese have white skin. They were all unrelated to us, everyone was friends." The message was translated through Google Translate.

Ōwara launched the manga in Shogakukan's Gekkan! Spirits magazine in 2016. The manga has more than 500,000 copies in print. After the anime adaptation debuted in January in Japan, the manga's sales rose, which led to multiple urgent reprints. The anime adaptation is helmed by Science SARU, an animation studio founded by Masaaki Yuasa and Eunyoung Choi which features the talents of a number of international animators.

The story follows Midori, Tsubame, and Sayaka, an energetic trio of first-year high school girls who come together in the Eizouken (Video Research Club) to turn their anime dreams into a reality. Midori is nervous to create an anime alone. She meets Tsubame who appears to be a well-to-do girl but she really has artistic dreams of being an animator. Midori's best friend Sayaka has the financial sense to bring the project to fruition and joins the pair on their quest.

Source: Sumito Ōwara's Twitter account