Katsuhiro Ôtomo

When talking about the great talents of Japanese animation, names like Hayao Miyazaki, Satoshi Kon, Mamoru Oshii or Hideaki Anno always come to mind. Among them also stands out a figure of great influence for his enormous contribution to the genre: Katsuhiro Otomo.

Born April 14, 1954 in Hasama in Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, Katsuhiro Ôtomo is a renowned Japanese manga artist, screenwriter, and filmmaker, widely recognized for creating the iconic manga Akira and directing its groundbreaking animated adaptation.

He grew up during a time of transition between post-war Japan and the Japan we know today. The 1960s was a decade full of protests and vandalism through student movements, which contributed to create a vision of a dystopian society that Otomo reflected in his works.

As stated in a recent interview with Forbes, Otomo used to read a lot of manga during his childhood, and soon started to draw his own manga. He was able to buy just one manga book per month, usually Shounen, which included things like Tetsuwan Atom and Tetsujin 28-go. This one was later a major inspiration for Akira in many ways.

Otomo studied at Sanuma High School, the origin of several manga artists. Once graduated in 1973, he left for Tokyo, and on October 4 of the same year he published his first work in the Action Magazine with a manga titled A Gun report, an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Mateo Falcone. Ôtomo's journey began in 1979 after contributing numerous short manga stories for Action Magazine on a series that would become his first great success. He then ventured into science fiction with his first major work, Fireball, a legendary manga set in a futuristic city ruled by a supercomputer called ATOM, which a rebel group seeks to destroy, exploring the individual/machine dilemma. Although Fireball was never completed, it marked a significant turning point in his career, featuring many of the themes he would continue to explore in his later works.

The 80's would be one of the most important times not only for Otomo, but for Japan in general. The industry reached its peak and Japan had dominated the Asian market with the rise of one of its most popular products, manga.

Between 1980 and 1982, Otomo published his first longer work (just over 200 pages, still brief by Japanese standards): Domu (Nightmares), which won the 4th Japan SF Grand Prix award for best science fiction. This manga depicts a psychological battle between a senile elder who controls his neighbors with scary psychic powers at his convenience and Etsuko, a girl with similar powers who will try to stop him at any cost. In 1982, Ôtomo started in anime as a character designer for the film Harmagedon. While gaining popularity as a manga artist of a new era, he also participated as a character designer in the 1983 animated feature film Genma Taisen or Harmagedon (directed by Rintaro). This film is largely based on the first three volumes by Kazumasa Hirei, creator of the manga.

In 1982 Otomo began to publish what is possibly his best known work, Akira, that would become his most celebrated creation and established him worldwide as one of the best-known Japanese authors (winner of the 8th Kodansha Manga Award). Spanning eight years of serialization, Akira ultimately reached 2000 pages of intricate artwork. During the manga's run, Ôtomo began adapting it into an animated film, even before the manga was fully completed. The animated movie Akira was released in 1988, cementing his legacy.

In 1987, before achieving worldwide fame, Katsuhiro Otomo took part in a project with renowned directors Rintaro and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The project consisted of a three-episode compilation under the name Neo-Tokyo or Manie-Manie: Labyrinth Tales, of which Otomo wrote and directed the third part called The Order to Stop Construction. For many, it was a preview of what would later become Akira in terms of theme, character design and narrative.

In the early 90s, Otomo left manga completely aside to devote himself entirely to cinema, with a few exceptions. In 1991, he released the feature film World Apartment Horror (a film adaptation of his manga of the same name) which plot revolves around a yakuza who must expel illegal immigrants who have occupied an apartment so that their bosses can sell the land.

He has also wrote the script for Roujin Z (1991). This futuristic film is about Haruko, a nursing student and Mr. Takazawa, who after a series of events by the health department, ends up being treated by a machine dedicated to the care of the elderly, which would unleash unexpected events.

Among his most recent works are SteamBoy, (2005) and Mushishi (2006), and has continued his work in the world of comics, being the author of titles such as The Legend of Mother Sarah, Memories or Hipira. In 2012, Ôtomo became the fourth manga artist inducted into the American Eisner Award Hall of Fame, and in 2013, he received the prestigious Purple Medal of Honor from the Japanese government for his contributions to the arts.