Volume 7

The real answer is, Homura means "flame" (a name that makes you think of fire and the color red), so I named her mother Kurenai (meaning "crimson", another word that makes you think of fire and red). I don't remeber where the Madame part came from; maybe I got it from some performer?

Now I'm going to talk about my editors a bit. Currently I have three of them. That's on the higher side for Kodansha's Weekly Shonen Magazine's editorial department. I feel like normally, the majority of manga artists have one or two editors. But it's not like I've looked up the statistics or anything, so I don't know exactly. As for why I have three, it's simply because I have a lot of work. If we're just talking about manga planning meetings, in reality, one is enough. When there's a conflict of opinion, then having someone with a third perspective, to offer compromises or different solutions entirely, is even better. In my case, there are a lot of wide-scale, non-manga projects like anime, video games, merchandise, collabs, and international development to deal with, so one or two editors wouldn't be enough to cover it. Even with three, they seem really busy all year round. And this goes without saying, but my editors also edit other manga artists' works. I'm always thinking, "Wow, they have it rough," but I don't get a lot of chances to thank them directly, so I'd like to take this opportunity to say, "Thank you for everything."

Now, changing the subject, the character in this vollume named Nino is modeled after a YouTuber I met in Germany. It started when I appeared on his channel, and I started talking about putting him in EDENS ZERO, and then I did. In the story, he's an enemy character, but in real life, he's a real nice, good-looking guy.

If I have the chance, I'd like to do more collaborations with some local YouTubers, too. Incidentally, a few of the YouTubers I know have already appeared in this manga.

—Hiro Mashima