The Art of Katsuhiro Otomo: The Master Who Revolutionized Manga and Conquered the World

There was a time when manga was practically unknown outside of Japan. Despite the growing success of anime on television, the masterpieces of Japanese comics remained hidden from most Western readers. However, everything changed with the arrival of AKIRA, Katsuhiro Otomo’s masterpiece that opened the doors to a new era in the global comic industry.

The publication of AKIRA in English, coinciding with the release of its film adaptation, took the world by surprise. Suddenly, the eyes of millions of readers were opened not only to Otomo’s talent but to the entire rich tradition of Japanese manga. This event marked the beginning of a cultural exchange that catapulted Japan to the forefront of the global comic scene.

Join us on a journey to the Neo-Tokyo that never was, in the now past future of 2019, to rediscover the artist who turned the entire planet into manga fans. Get ready to immerse yourself in the universe of the cyberpunk master, Katsuhiro Otomo.

The Origins of a Genius

Katsuhiro Otomo was born on April 14, 1954, in Tome, a small town in Miyagi prefecture, 450 kilometers north of Tokyo. Growing up in a rural area, being the only male child in the family, led him to find his main entertainment in reading and drawing manga.

His early influences were the legendary Tetsuwan Atom (Astroboy) by Osamu Tezuka and Tetsujin 28-go by Mitsuteru Yokoyama. However, it was a “how to draw manga” book by Shotaro Ishinomori that really ignited his passion for the art of comics. Want to explore your own drawing skills? Discover inspiring resources here.

During his teenage years, Otomo also developed a deep love for cinema. He was fascinated by the early examples of New Hollywood, such as “Easy Rider” and “Bonnie & Clyde,” but it was Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” that left an indelible mark on his imagination.

Fate smiled upon him when a high school classmate introduced him to an editor from Futabasha. Impressed by his early works, the editor advised him to visit if he ever moved to Tokyo. Otomo wasted no time and, as soon as he graduated, set off for the capital to pursue his dream.

The First Steps in the World of Manga

Otomo debuted in October 1973 in the pages of Weekly Manga Action. For the next five years, he consistently contributed short stories. Although his work was solid, it did not yet stand out among the crowd of emerging talents. However, this would change dramatically at the end of the decade.

By 1979, Otomo perceived that the comic market in Japan was dominated by two main trends. On one hand, shonen manga, aimed at children and preteens, focused on sports sagas and fantastical science fiction like Doraemon. On the other hand, gekiga, a more adult and “elevated” narrative approach, proposed in the late 50s by authors like Yoshihiro Tatsumi and Takao Saito, told raw and realistic stories, with a somber and stylized visual style.

Otomo felt that something was missing in the landscape: hard science fiction stories like the ones he had enjoyed as a child. He decided to fill that gap, but with a more realistic and credible approach. Interested in creating your own science fiction worlds? Discover how to bring your ideas to life here.

The Fascination with the Supernatural

While his initial inspiration came from the robots and mechas of the 50s, Otomo soon became obsessed with a more contemporary theme: the mysterious world of extrasensory perception (ESP). In the atomic era, one of the main concerns was the effect of scientific advancement on the human body and mind. This gave rise to numerous stories in popular culture about people who, through experiments, awakened the true potential of the human brain, activating powers of telekinesis, telepathy, and clairvoyance.

The possibilities of these psychic abilities ignited Otomo’s imagination. In January 1979, he published “Fireball,” his first science fiction comic in the style that would make him famous. This work marked the beginning of his exploration of themes that would become his trademark.

In “Fireball,” Otomo began to experiment with a visual style that combined elements of gekiga with more modern influences. His contact with Moebius’s work, through the science fiction magazine Starlog, had a profound impact on his artistic approach. Inspired by Moebius’s combination of realism and synthesis, Otomo developed his own distinctive style within manga conventions.

The result was a unique aesthetic: characters and settings with realistic but simplified proportions, which retained the characteristic expressiveness of Japanese manga while adding a new layer of credibility to hard science fiction concepts. Looking to perfect your own drawing style? Find inspiration and techniques here.

The Birth of a Classic: Domu

While concluding “Fireball,” Otomo saw William Friedkin’s film “The Exorcist.” This experience led him to consider incorporating horror elements into his stories of psychic powers. Also inspired by a news story about a series of suicides in a nearby apartment complex, in January 1980 he published “Domu,” the work that would establish him as an undisputed master of the medium.

“Domu” begins as a supernatural mystery manga but quickly reveals itself as a confrontation between two powerful mediums, with innocent people caught in the crossfire. To avoid the problems he had faced with “Fireball,” Otomo planned the entire story of “Domu” as if it were a movie, keeping the narrative concentrated on the apartment complex and meticulously caring for the overall structure.

In search of a visual “grammar” that would allow him to realize his narrative ambitions, Otomo found inspiration in the work of Tetsuya Chiba, particularly in his sumo manga “Notari Matsumoto.” Chiba’s sense of timing and panel composition resonated with Otomo’s quest for clarity. Incorporating these elements into his own style, Otomo developed an extraordinary ability to frame each panel in service of the story.

Another fundamental element of Otomo’s art in “Domu” is his spectacular settings. Inspired by Shigeru Mizuki’s horror manga, which combined cartoonish characters with detailed and realistic backgrounds, Otomo placed considerable emphasis on making the backgrounds as attractive as possible. This awakened in him an interest in architecture, which manifested in the enormous apartment towers of “Domu,” based on his own first residence in Tokyo.

Otomo drew these towers with almost obsessive detail, practically turning them into another character in the story. Far from being a mere display of talent, these meticulous backgrounds frame and contextualize the mystery, tragedy, and massacre of the battle between the psychics. Want to improve your skills in drawing backgrounds and settings? Explore advanced techniques here.

“Domu” was an instant success. Otomo was not only awarded by the Japanese Mangaka Society, but “Domu” became the first comic to win the prestigious Nihon SF Taisho science fiction award. Numerous mangakas would later claim that “Domu” was the work that inspired them to become artists.

AKIRA: The Masterpiece That Changed Everything

The success of “Domu” attracted the attention of Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher. In June 1980, Kodansha launched Young Magazine, a new magazine aimed at teenage and college audiences, popularizing the concept of seinen manga. They wanted Otomo to create a series for Young Magazine’s debut, but he needed time to prepare properly.

Otomo decided to approach the concept of psychic powers again, this time from an action and hard science fiction perspective. He wrote the basic plot in a couple of pages, calculating that he could tell the whole story in about 10 installments. However, once he started drawing, the story grew to occupy more than 2000 pages over 8 years, becoming one of the cultural milestones of modern Japan.

On December 20, 1982, the first chapter of AKIRA was published in Young Magazine, marking the beginning of a new era in manga and global pop culture.

Set in Neo-Tokyo, almost 40 years after World War III, AKIRA revolves around the adventures of Kaneda, the leader of a teenage motorcycle gang, and the various characters and organizations he becomes involved with after his friend Tetsuo is kidnapped by the army following a strange accident.

Otomo sought to replicate, in a futuristic key, the Japan he remembered from his youth, with the scars of World War II still fresh. AKIRA is populated with political intrigue, social protests, and gangs of young motorcyclists living by their own codes, all seasoned with sophisticated artifacts and vehicles that seemed to promise the Japanese economic miracle.

Otomo’s pencil practically visually defined the concept of Cyberpunk, the emerging science fiction genre that, through films like “Blade Runner” or books like “Neuromancer,” was rethinking a new dystopian view of the future linked to the arrival of the Digital Age and growing class disparity. Are you passionate about cyberpunk and want to create your own futuristic worlds? Discover how to take the next step here.

AKIRA stands out as one of the foundational works of the Cyberpunk genre, and Neo-Tokyo easily stands as an archetype of futuristic megalopolis in its own right. Otomo’s attention to detail in the backgrounds, visible in the tiny scratches and dents he adds to almost every wall and window, makes Neo-Tokyo feel not like a mere pile of skyscrapers, but like a truly gigantic city beyond imagination.

Technology is another standout aspect in AKIRA. Otomo not only equips his characters with weapons and tanks identical to real ones but also with all kinds of flying vehicles, laser guns, and combat robots with designs so functional they could almost seem real. The 80s were a very fertile time for the mecha genre in Japan, and Otomo quickly set trends in that field.

Artistically, Otomo’s priority in AKIRA was speed, in every sense. Stylistically, the motorcycle races, chases, and battles throughout the story exploited every resource available to represent speed, making bold use of speed lines that consume entire pages in their frenzy.

Narratively, Otomo employed his passion for cinema to achieve the most fluid cinematic effect possible on paper. Formally, he sought to streamline the reading experience to the maximum, dispensing with text to tell the story as much as possible. Otomo set out to control the reading speed in such a way that the reader naturally passes entire pages in seconds, only to suddenly make them stop on a single panel.

The maturity of this narrative concern, combined with the captivating world that Otomo manages to create with his settings, makes AKIRA’s approach epic in the most difficult sense of the word to achieve. As the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that at the core of the conflict are forces that are beyond the human mind.

Otomo does not hesitate to demonstrate this with scenes of destruction that take advantage of all his architectural knowledge to generate in the reader the feeling that they are not just seeing ink on paper, but skyscrapers falling to pieces and, more importantly, thousands of people dying, as Neo-Tokyo is ravaged by all factions vying for control of the most destructive weapon ever invented. Want to learn how to create impactful action scenes like those in AKIRA? Discover advanced techniques here.

The Global Impact of AKIRA

If “Domu” had sparked interest in Otomo, AKIRA was directly a phenomenon. Young Magazine sales grew steadily during AKIRA’s publication. When the first compilation volume came out in 1984, in an unusual B4 format and meticulously corrected and re-edited by Otomo, it far exceeded all of Kodansha’s expectations, going from an original print run of 30,000 copies to a reprint of 300,000 in just 2 weeks.

AKIRA is recognized as the direct inspiration for a huge number of science fiction manga from the 80s, such as “Ghost in the Shell” and “Gunnm: Battle Angel Alita,” not to mention the legions of artists who took Otomo’s techniques and applied them to any possible genre.

AKIRA’s unusual success soon attracted the attention of animation studios. Otomo’s love for cinema translated into interest in the opportunity to direct the adaptation. While still working on the manga, Otomo made a couple of segments in animation anthologies. Finally, he decided to direct AKIRA on the condition that he be given total creative control.

Otomo drew all the storyboards and wrote an alternative ending even before he had finished defining the details of the manga’s ending, working on both projects in parallel. The AKIRA movie premiered in Tokyo on July 16, 1988, and quickly spread to cinemas and video stores around the world, becoming a cult classic and one of the references of the burgeoning otaku subculture.

The success of the AKIRA movie also motivated the editing of the manga that ended up cementing Otomo’s status as an undisputed master of the medium. Starting in 1989, Marvel Comics published AKIRA in monthly comic-book format, adapting it to the Western reading direction. Even with a work of AKIRA’s quality, publishing a Japanese comic in the American market, enamored with the superheroic realism of John Byrne and Art Adams, was a risky move.

To increase production value, Marvel used an even bolder strategy: the original black and white manga was digitally colorized by Steve Oliff, in what was the first comic entirely colored by computer. The move was successful beyond imagination, and AKIRA soon became a mandatory reference for comic artists looking to stand out in the market. Interested in exploring the possibilities of digital color in your own works? Discover innovative techniques here.

The Americans’ passion for AKIRA, soon shared by Europeans after new translations into French, German, and Spanish, turned it into manga’s Trojan horse. Everyone interested in the medium immediately wanted to see what other treasures the land of the rising sun was hiding, and several publishers specializing in translating manga opened around the world. By the end of the century, manga was a publishing phenomenon in itself, and today there are millions of fans around the world who passionately follow the series and authors of Japan’s major magazines.

The Legacy Continues

After finishing AKIRA, Otomo’s career focused more on animation, writing the film adaptation of Osamu Tezuka’s “Metropolis” and directing the experimental “Steamboy.” In recent years, he has assured that he is working on a new manga project that he cannot yet disclose, keeping his fans in expectation.

Meanwhile, Otomo is designing and editing a new edition of his complete works in Japan, which will include everything from his debut work to his storyboards for AKIRA. For now, this edition is only confirmed by Kodansha in Japanese, and it’s hard to know for certain if it will ever be re-edited abroad.

However, AKIRA remains available in dozens of languages, ready to be enjoyed and studied by new generations of readers and artists. It’s important to remember that, until not too long ago, we didn’t even dream of the existence of so many quality comics on a distant Pacific island. Fortunately, both inside and outside the story, AKIRA opened our eyes, allowing us to see beyond our borders and discover a world of creativity and visual narrative that has enriched global culture.

The legacy of Katsuhiro Otomo and AKIRA continues to inspire artists and storytellers around the world. His unique vision, attention to detail, and ability to create immersive worlds have left an indelible mark on the comic medium and pop culture in general. Are you ready to take your art to the next level? Discover how you can develop your own unique style here.

While we eagerly await Otomo’s next project, we can continue to explore and rediscover the layers of meaning and hidden details in AKIRA and the rest of his work. Each rereading reveals new aspects and reminds us why Katsuhiro Otomo is considered one of the undisputed masters of manga and visual storytelling.