And this is where Mr. Murata read these updates which eventually led to the currently publishing remade "Onepunch Man" correct? Were you regularly reading web comics before then?
M: Nope, I knew their existence but I never actually read any. Around the time when Eyeshield 21 was ending, I saw a Tweet and blog post by Akiman (an illustrator) saying "Onepunch Man is really good." I got interested and took a look, which led me to pull an all-nighter reading the entire thing. I thought "Web comics are really great!" and started reading a whole bunch of them, but in the end Onepunch Man was the most enjoyable to read.
O: I realized Mr. Murata was reading it when he Tweeted "Onepunch Man got updated." But that was also around the time where I got a job and had to take a hiatus....
M: After about an year Mr. ONE tweeted "I'm thinking of quitting my job to become a manga artist, but my peers are stopping me."
O: In my mind it was already decided, but because my peers were against it, I was starting to wonder what I should do. That was when Mr. Murata contacted me.
M: When I first started reading Onepunch Man, I was already hoping I could one day work together. But I was already under a contract with Shonen Jump, so I thought it would sound too fishy if I just asked "Want to work together?" But then I saw the Tweet and thought "Crap, Mr. ONE is going to stop drawing manga!" and contacted him immediately.
In the end, Mr. Murata chose to work with Mr. ONE regardless of his contract with Shonen Jump. What made you ultimately decide?
M: Around that time, I was actually really sick. I broke out in a hive, my inner organs were infected, and I couldn't breathe well with my windpipes swelling. I was in the hospital when I thought, "Ah, I guess people die just like that." If I'm going to die, I want to do something I really love to do. I want to draw manga with Mr. ONE. That's what I thought. If I was going to do it, I wanted to create a manga that didn't change Mr. ONE's original manga. I just tried to contact as many publishers that would fulfill my wish, regardless of my contract. It was thanks to my editor who contacted "Tonari no Youngjump" (the publisher that Murata writes Onepunch Man right now) that my dream came true. The deciding point was that I had already previously contacted Mr. ONE about working together, and that we were going to write with published books already in mind.