THE ART OF… KATSUHIRO OTOMO

It seems hard to believe, but there was a time when most comic readers around the world had no idea what manga was. Beyond the American dominance of the market, and the internal strength of the industry in certain countries, practically no one paid attention to the peculiar comic tradition that Japan had developed after World War II, even though anime had been gaining ground on international screens for some time.

The masterpieces of the genre were only known by small groups of fans and by a handful of comic artists who, amazed by the possibilities that their Eastern contemporaries had managed to unlock, elevated their production level to new heights. These artists became masters, protected by the knowledge of the worst-kept secret in the business. But one day AKIRA appeared, and the floodgates opened.

The English edition of Katsuhiro Otomo’s masterpiece, coinciding with the theatrical release of its equally brilliant film adaptation, took the world by surprise. It opened eyes not only to the master who had captured their attention, but also to the entire comic tradition from which he had emerged, initiating an international exchange that put Japan at the forefront of the comic world. Want to discover the techniques that revolutionized the manga world? Explore here how Otomo transformed the visual language of comics.

Reading Otomo’s work, it’s easy to understand why, even so many years later, it remains so influential. Let’s travel to the Neo-Tokyo that never was, in the now-past future of 2019, and rediscover the artist who turned the entire planet into manga-maniacs. Ladies and gentlemen, the grand Sensei of cyberpunk, Katsuhiro Otomo!

The beginnings of a visionary: From Tome to Tokyo

Otomo Katsuhiro was born on April 14, 1954, in Tome, a small town in Miyagi Prefecture, 450 kilometers north of Tokyo. Living in a rural area, and being the only male child in the family, he didn’t have much to entertain himself with, so he spent much of his time reading and drawing manga.

His favorite mangas to copy as a child were the legendary Tetsuwan Atom by Tezuka Osamu, known in the West as Astroboy, and Tetsujin 28-go by Yokoyama Mitsuteru. However, it was a book on how to draw manga by Ishinomori Shotaro that inspired him to take manga drawing seriously.

As a teenager, he added to his artistic interest a passion for cinema, fascinated by the early examples of the emerging New Hollywood such as Easy Rider, Bonnie & Clyde, and especially Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey. This combination of cinematic and manga influences would lay the foundation for his revolutionary visual narrative approach.

A high school classmate introduced him to an editor at Futabasha, to whom he showed his first samples. The editor was impressed and told him to visit if he moved to Tokyo, which he did as soon as he graduated. Otomo debuted in October 1973 in the pages of Weekly Manga Action, and for five years he consistently contributed short stories, with work that was solid but not particularly outstanding compared to what would come later.

During these early years, Otomo developed fundamental skills that would later define his unique style. His ability to convey emotions through subtle facial expressions and his meticulous attention to detail in settings began to manifest, although he was still finding his distinctive artistic voice. Enhance your mastery of facial expressions and visual storytelling with specialized resources on our platform.

The search for a new vision: Between Gekiga and science fiction

By 1979, according to Otomo himself, the comic market in Japan was dominated by two trends. On one hand, shonen manga, aimed at children and pre-teens, composed mainly of sports sagas and fantastical science fiction like Doraemon by Fujiko F. Fujio. On the other hand was Gekiga, an adult narrative approach considered “superior” to traditional manga, proposed in the late 50s by authors such as Tatsumi Yoshihiro or Saito Takao.

Inspired by detective literature and film noir, gekiga told raw and realistic stories, with somber compositions and stylized drawing, almost always in contemporary urban settings or in the Shogunate era. Otomo felt that no one was creating the kind of hard science fiction stories he enjoyed as a child, and he wanted to shift the focus toward something more fantastic yet realistic and believable.

While his inspiration was the robots and mechas of the 50s, his focus as a science fiction author was oriented toward a more contemporary obsession: the mysterious and fascinating world of extrasensory perception, or ESP. One of the main concerns of the atomic age was the effect of scientific advancement on the human body and mind, and by the 70s this led to all kinds of stories in popular culture about people who, through experiments, awakened the true potential of the human brain.

These characters developed powers of telekinesis, telepathy, clairvoyance, and all kinds of supernatural abilities (in the United States, the paradigmatic case would be various characters from Marvel Comics’ X-Men – Professor X’s origin even makes direct reference to the Manhattan Project). The possibilities of psychic abilities sparked Otomo’s inspiration, and in January 1979 he published Fireball, his first science fiction comic in the style that would make him famous.

The artistic evolution: From Moebius to a unique style

During the first stage of his career, Otomo drew with a modern style inspired by illustrators like Tadanori Yokoo, but his graphic and narrative approach in general remained rooted in the gekiga tradition. However, thanks to his contributions to the science fiction magazine Starlog, he came into contact with several pages by Moebius, who since the founding of the seminal magazine Metal Hurlant had been at the forefront of French Bande Dessinée.

Moebius’s approach to drawing, with a fresh combination of realism and synthesis, made a strong impression on Otomo, who sought to create his own variation of that style within the rules of manga. The result was works with protagonists and settings of realistic but simplified proportions, managing to preserve the expressiveness of Japanese drawing while adding a new layer of credibility to the hard science fiction concepts that would be his specialty.

This period of technical experimentation was crucial for Otomo’s development as an artist. His tireless quest to find a balance between manga tradition and Western influences allowed him to develop a unique visual voice that would transcend cultural boundaries. Explore specialized resources to develop your own unique style by combining diverse artistic influences.

However, despite this original and fresh finish, Otomo still had little experience as a writer, and Fireball ended abruptly after 50 pages, unable to fully develop the plot. Otomo learned a lot from this experience, and while he continued making independent stories and experimenting with narrative techniques, he prepared his next serialization with a different approach.

Domu: The birth of a manga master

While concluding Fireball, Otomo saw William Friedkin’s film The Exorcist, and decided that introducing horror elements into his stories could be a more effective way to narrate tales about psychic powers. So, after reading a news story in the newspaper about a series of suicides in a nearby apartment complex, in January 1980 he published Domu, the manga with which he established himself 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. The tension that Otomo manages to build page after page is palpable, creating an atmosphere of psychological terror that keeps the reader in constant expectation.

To avoid repeating the Fireball experience, 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 throughout the story. When looking to define the “grammar” needed to achieve his ambitions, Otomo encountered the work of Chiba Tetsuya, who at that time was drawing the sumo manga Notari Matsumoto.

Otomo immediately connected with Chiba’s sense of timing and panel composition, noting the same search for narrative clarity in which he found himself immersed. He incorporated Chiba’s graphic language into his own style, and his ability to frame a panel in service of the story became one of his most recognized achievements.

Architecture as a character: The mastery of space

Another fundamental element of Otomo’s art is his spectacular settings. He was deeply impressed by the manga of Mizuki Shigeru, acclaimed horror author, who combined extremely cartoonish characters with detailed and realistic backgrounds. Otomo reasoned that backgrounds and second planes are actually the element of the panel that occupies the most space, so he put considerable effort into making them as visually attractive as possible.

This awakened an interest in architecture that manifested in the enormous apartment towers of Domu, based on his own first residence when he moved to Tokyo. Otomo drew these towers with an almost obsessive level of detail that, far from being mere talent showing, turns them almost into another character in the story, framing and contextualizing the mystery, tragedy, and massacre of the battle between the psychics.

This attention to architectural detail would become one of the most recognizable hallmarks of his work, and many subsequent artists would attempt to replicate this immersive quality in their own works. Discover methods to create impactful architectural backgrounds that elevate your illustrations to the next level.

All these factors made Domu an instant success, and Otomo was awarded not only by the Japanese Manga Society but was the first comic to win the Nihon SF Taisho science fiction award. Several mangakas would later claim that Domu was the work that made them want to be artists.

The path to AKIRA: Gestation of a masterpiece

If he were an average mangaka, Domu would easily be considered his masterpiece, which makes it even more incredible to read knowing it’s a prelude to what would come. The acclaim that Otomo achieved with Domu caught the attention of Kodansha, Japan’s largest publisher, responsible for the hyper-popular Shuukan Shounen Magazine (where Tetsujin 28-Go was originally serialized).

Kodansha had perceived that there was a gap in the market between shonen manga and gekiga, and in June 1980 launched a new magazine aimed at the teenage/university audience, Young Magazine, which effectively popularized the concept of seinen manga. Kodansha wanted Otomo to create a series for the debut of Young Magazine, but he had to finish some previous commitments and, moreover, wanted to be adequately prepared to take advantage of this opportunity.

The bitter experience of Fireball still weighed on his mind, and Otomo decided that in his next project he would try again to address the concept of psychic powers from an action and hard science fiction approach. He wrote the entire basic plot in a couple of pages, ensuring the milestones he wanted to reach, and calculated that he could tell the whole story satisfactorily in approximately 10 installments, less than 6 months of serialization.

But once he put pencil to paper, the story grew and grew to occupy more than 2000 pages over 8 years, becoming in the process one of the cultural milestones of modern Japan. On December 20, 1982, the first chapter of AKIRA was published in Young Magazine, and nothing would ever be the same.

Neo-Tokyo: A meticulously constructed post-apocalyptic world

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

In addition to extrasensory abilities, Otomo revisited several elements from Fireball in AKIRA, such as street protests and human experiments. He sought to replicate, in a futuristic key, the Japan he remembered from his youth, with the scars of World War II still fresh, and populated AKIRA with political intrigue, social protests, and gangs of young bikers who live by their own codes, but adding the kind of sophisticated artifacts and vehicles that the Japanese economic miracle seemed to promise.

Otomo’s pencil practically visually defined the concept of Cyberpunk, the thriving new 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 the growing disparity of social classes.

AKIRA is undoubtedly one of the foundational works of the Cyberpunk genre, and Neo-Tokyo easily stands out as an archetype of a futuristic megalopolis in its own right. Otomo’s detailism for backgrounds, visible in the tiny scratches and dents he adds to almost all walls and windows, makes Neo-Tokyo not feel like just a bunch of skyscrapers, but a true gigantic city that extends beyond what we can see. Fascinated by cyberpunk worlds? Explore resources to create your own futuristic urban settings here.

Both as an artist and as a storyteller, Otomo’s sense of scale, so well exploited in Domu, is remarkable: his slums give the impression of being tiny before the immensity of buildings and military bases, leaving the characters minuscule in comparison.

The technological revolution: Designs that defined the future

If the appearance of Neo-Tokyo is impressive, technology is the real star of the show. 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, not to mention what may be the most famous motorcycle in comic history.

The 80s were a very fertile climate for the mecha genre in Japan, a product of the success of the anime Mobile Suit Gundam, and Otomo quickly set trends in that field. His vehicle and robot designs were characterized by a perfect balance between practical functionality and visual appeal, creating objects that seemed both practical and aesthetically impressive.

Kaneda’s iconic motorcycle, inspired by the movie Tron, quickly became a symbol not only of AKIRA but of the entire cyberpunk genre. Its futuristic but plausible design captured the imagination of generations of artists and designers, influencing numerous subsequent works in manga, film, and video games.

Many Hollywood concept artists have cited these designs as a direct influence on their work for science fiction films, and AKIRA’s visual impact continues to resonate in contemporary popular culture. Otomo’s ability to create objects that seem both practical and aesthetically impressive remains a masterclass for today’s illustrators.

Capturing speed: The narrative dynamics of AKIRA

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, he employed his passion for cinema to achieve the most fluid cinematic effect that could be captured on paper. And from a formal standpoint, Otomo sought to streamline the reading experience to the maximum, dispensing with text to tell the story visually whenever 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 completely on a single panel. This masterful control of narrative rhythm transformed the way many subsequent artists would approach the sequencing of their stories. Discover how to master dynamism and movement in your illustrations with our specialized resources.

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, and Otomo doesn’t hesitate to demonstrate this with scenes of destruction that take advantage of all his architectural knowledge.

These sequences 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 razed by all the factions vying for control of the most destructive weapon ever invented.

The global impact: AKIRA as a cultural phenomenon

If Domu had sparked interest in Otomo, AKIRA was directly a furor. Sales of Young Magazine grew steadily during the publication of AKIRA, and when the first collected 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 mangas 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 in any possible genre.

AKIRA’s unusual success meant that animation studios soon became interested in adapting it. Otomo’s love for cinema translated into an interest in the opportunity to direct the adaptation, and while he continued working on the manga, he made a couple of segments in animation anthologies. He finally 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 having finished defining the details of the manga’s ending, working on both projects in parallel. The AKIRA film premiered in Tokyo on July 16, 1988, and quickly spread to theaters and video stores around the world, becoming a cult classic and one of the references of the thriving otaku subculture. If you’re passionate about cinematic visual storytelling, click here to explore resources that will help you incorporate it into your art.

AKIRA in the West: The Trojan horse of manga

The success of the AKIRA film also motivated the publication of the manga in the West, which cemented 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, which was in love with the superhero realism of John Byrne and Art Adams, was a risky move. To increase the production value, Marvel used an even riskier strategy: the original black and white manga was digitally colored 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. Americans’ passion for AKIRA, soon shared by Europeans after new translations into French, German, and Spanish, turned it into the Trojan horse of manga.

Everyone interested in the medium immediately wanted to see what other treasures the land of the rising sun was hiding, and several publishing houses specializing in translating manga opened around the world. By the end of the century, manga was a publishing phenomenon in itself, and nowadays there are millions of fans around the world who passionately follow the series and authors of Japan’s major magazines. Want to master the basics of the manga style that Otomo revolutionized? Enter here and begin your artistic journey.

The legacy continues: Otomo after AKIRA

After finishing AKIRA, Otomo’s career focused more on animation, writing the film adaptation of Tezuka Osamu’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, but in the meantime he 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 reprinted abroad. However, AKIRA is available in dozens of languages, ready to be enjoyed and studied by new generations of artists and readers.

It’s important to remember that, until not too long ago, we simply didn’t dream that so many quality comics existed on a distant Pacific island. Fortunately, both within and outside the story, AKIRA opened our eyes, so that we can see beyond our limitations and expand our creative horizons.

Otomo’s impact on contemporary visual storytelling is immeasurable. His innovations in the use of space, architecture as a narrative element, the representation of movement and large-scale destruction have left an indelible mark on generations of artists. His meticulous attention to detail and his ability to create visually coherent but extraordinary worlds continue to be an inspiration for creators of manga, comics, film, and video games worldwide.