The Mega Man Gigamix manga recently concluded with its third volume in North America. Publisher, Udon Entertainment, had a chance to speak with its author, Hitoshi Ariga, who says he first started working on the story over ten years ago.
“I first started the story about ten years ago, so I kind of felt relieved that I finally got all the way to this point, to be finished. I actually came up with the finale of the book back in ’98, so more than 10 years ago,” Ariga reveals.
Production was held up by the fact that there was a fairly long gap between Mega Man 8 and Mega Man 9, Ariga explains.
“When I was working on the book there were times when production on the videogame would pause, and then it would start up again. For instance, there was a long period of time between Rockman 8 and Rockman 9. So the publisher said, ‘Because the game is not coming out, we don’t really need to make a new manga.’ Also, the magazine that was originally publishing my manga stopped carrying Mega Man all together, so that was another delay.”