The third installment of the "Jump" interview series is with Osamu Akimoto, author of "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koenmae Hashutsujo"

Osamu Akimoto of "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Koenmae Hashutsujo" appeared in the third installment of "THE ZERO to ONE," an interview project in which authors talk about the behind-the-scenes stories of the creation of "Weekly Shonen Jump" (Shueisha). The interview was published on the company's online bookstore "Zebrack," in which Akimoto talks about the journey from the initial concept to the serialization of character design, his state of mind at the time, his philosophy on manga, and more.

Regarding the early days of the "Kochikame" serialization, Akimoto said, "At first, my editor told me, 'Draw 10 storyboards before you start serialization.' He said that with 10 stories, a comic book could be published. I enjoyed drawing in the summer because I loved it, but by the time the serialization began, I only had about six chapters prepared. In terms of a weekly serialization, that's one and a half months' worth. From then on, I would draw the illustrations while working on the storyboards every week. At first, I was working alone, so it was even more frantic."

Regarding setting the story in Kameari, he said, "One big reason is that it's close to home, but I also thought it would be better to set it somewhere that no one knows.At first I wanted to set the story in Asakusa or Ueno, but those are place names that appear frequently."

To commemorate the release of the third episode, Zebrack is releasing the first volume of the Kochikame manga and the first 100 chapters from volume 100 onwards for free until October 18th.

"THE ZERO to ONE" is a special project in which the creators of Weekly Shonen Jump's hit works are interviewed directly about the journey they took from "zero to one." The publication date of each interview article will be the release date of the magazine containing the first chapter of each work.