Artist Review

Short review on influential anime and manga artist

Information concerning Artists can be found in books and on the Net.
I highly recommend a book called The Complete Anime Guide by Trish Ledoux and Doug Ranney. Published in 1995 by Tiger Mountain Press. It is a great book for the beginning anime watcher and contains a comprehensive list of all the anime videos available in North America. Also highly recommended is Manga! Manga! by Frederik L. Schodt. Published by Kodansha International. For an in depth and historical guide to manga, this book would be the first place to start.

Katsuhiro Otomo

Otomo was born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1954. At the age of 18, he moved to Tokyo and began working in various jobs. Due to his inovative work, he was heralded as the new breed of author-illustrator. It was his masterpiece Akira, however that propelled him into the international stage. Many people these days know of the great impact Akira had on anime internationally. Akira was first published in Japan in 1984 at a rate of one volume a year. Each volume has sold more than 700,000 copies. Ever since Akira, Otomo has been working on many other things. He has broaden his activities to directing and producing animated films, designing characters and sets for commercials and designing book, CD and video covers. Other works by Otomo include animated movies, Roujin Z and Robot Carnival, the Canon T70 commercial shown in Japan and the highly publisied Memories.