Hitoshi Ariga Reflects On Mega Man Gigamix, Future Projects

The UDON Entertainment crew has a nice little interview with Hitoshi Ariga up right now, talking about the conclusion of the Mega Man Gigamix manga, which ended its English run back in November with the advent of volume 3. For those interested, here's a tiny snippet from the interview:

How did you feel about completing the story? Because it’s an epic story… were you glad it was finished or were you sad it was over?

"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.

"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 Megaman all together, so that was another delay."

Ariga also spends a bit of time discussing future projects, although he can't go into too much detail at the this time.

Of note, Ariga teases he's involved with some video game work... but, again, he can't comment. Could Capcom have possibly brought Ariga in to assist with a new Mega Man game? We already know he's working on something related to the Blue Bomber, but what? As always, speculation is welcome.

Fans of Hitoshi Ariga's work should definitely give the full interview a read at the UDON blog!