Black Lagoon is a series that focuses on a band of pirates that don’t use the power of Devil Fruits to aid their plundering, instead relying on their wit and the arsenal of a small army. While the manga first got its start in 2002, the anime adaptation from Studio Madhouse helped to push the franchise to new heights with both its initial series along with a spin-off series. Unfortunately, creator Rei Hiroe’s struggles with mental health issues have long been a hindrance on the artist and in a recent interview, the mangaka discussed his problems and how he is still working on himself to this day.
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Taking to social media last year, the Black Lagoon creator explained the difficulty in being a creator while dealing with mental health issues, “There’s a tweet going around saying that if you get depressed, you’ll waste 10 years of your life, but I seriously couldn’t recover and forced myself to serialize irregularly, and it took me 4 years to publish one volume, and I still panic when there’s a tight deadline, so I can’t write unless I have a huge buffer, so as a serialized manga artist, I haven’t recovered from that half-dead state, so please be careful.”
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The Start of Rei’s Depression
In speaking with outlet Comic Natalie, Hiroe discussed when he first noticed his mental health issues, “I don’t know the exact reason, but working on the manga was getting harder and harder, and it was getting harder to organize my thoughts. Even when I wanted to start the next task, my hands would stop. Before I even had the intention to say, ‘I don’t want to draw,’ my hands had already stopped. So I thought, ‘This is no good, I can’t draw,’ and talked to Natsume about the situation. It was around the time of the first hiatus (2010) that we decided to take a break.”
Rei also noted that the passing of his father put additional stress on both himself and his work schedule, “When my father died, I didn’t think it had affected me that much mentally, but it seems the damage was much bigger than I expected. I felt the pain slowly building up afterward. However, I don’t know if those were the direct causes of my depression. The stress I’d built up from ‘Roberta Revenge’ and my father’s death. Looking back, I think those were probably the causes.”
Hiroe also noted that while he might be able to put on a happy face in public, his inner turmoil was still raging, “When readers see me speaking at events like this, they think, ‘Oh, you’re doing fine.’ In my case, it’s not that I can’t do everything, but I just couldn’t sit down and draw manga. That’s something people don’t understand very often.”
The Black Lagoon Hiatus
Rei also noted that Black Lagoon’s past hiatuses only added to his depression, as the series continues to release manga chapters to this day, “When I thought that readers were waiting for the next installment, it made me even more depressed. I just felt like I couldn’t do this. Around that time, my hypochondria was getting worse, and I was also suffering from panic attacks. If I tried to force myself to continue drawing, I would have ended up hating “Black Lagoon.” If I started to hate it, I would probably never be able to draw again. I wanted to avoid that at all costs, so I took medicine and refused to touch “Black Lagoon” until I was able to move my hands again.”
The artist specified that his work on Black Lagoon will go on hiatus depending on his mental status, realizing that he needs to manage his well-being, “The understanding of those around you) is important. You should absolutely not continue to work beyond your ability. It will only lead to further emotional breakdown. If those around you say, ‘Just do it!’ then that’s the end of it. I think it’s best to just run away. It’s not good to say, ‘I’m trying my best, so you should try your best too.’ That will only make you feel more self-sufficient.”
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