Katsuhiro Otomo | |
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Otomo (left) with Hermann Huppen at the 2016 Angoulême International Comics Festival
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Born | Katsuhiro Otomo April 14, 1954 Miyagi Prefecture, Japan |
Nationality | Japanese |
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Katsuhiro Otomo (大友 克洋 Ōtomo Katsuhiro?, born April 14, 1954) is a Japanese manga artist, screenwriter and film director. He is best known as the creator of the manga Akira and its animated film adaptation. He was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, promoted to Officier of the order in 2014, became the fourth manga artist ever inducted into the American Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012, and was awarded the Purple Medal of Honor from the Japanese government in 2013. Otomo later received the Winsor McCay Award at the 41st Annie Awards in 2014 and the 2015 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, the first manga artist to receive the award.
Katsuhiro Otomo was born in Tome, Miyagi Prefecture and grew up in Tome-gun. While he was in high school he was fascinated with movies, often taking a three-hour train ride during school holidays just to see them. In 1973 he graduated high school and left Miyagi, heading to Tokyo with the hopes of becoming a manga artist. On October 4, 1973, he published his first work, a manga adaptation of Prosper Merimee's short novel Mateo Falcone, titled A Gun Report.
In 1979, after writing multiple short-stories for the magazine Action, Otomo created his first science-fiction work, titled Fireball. Although the manga was never completed, it is regarded as a milestone in Otomo's career as it contained many of the same themes he would explore in his later, more successful manga such as Dōmu. Dōmu began serialization in January 1980 and ran for two years until completed. In 1983, it was published in book form and would win the Nihon SF Taisho Award, the Japanese equivalent to the Nebula Award.