Kazuo Umezu
Kazuo Umezu (Japanese楳図 かずお, Kazuo Umezu, actually :楳 図 一 雄, born September 3, 1936 in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist.
He is one of the most famous artist in the field of horror manga, but has also Gag and science fiction manga drawn. His work is translated into English and French, among others. Numerous films and television series based on his manga. He had an impact on renowned horror artist Junji Ito as.
Biography
Umezu was born in 1936 in a village on Kōya -san in Wakayama Prefecture and grew up in Gojo in Nara prefecture on. His first cartoon he made ten years.
Manga Leihbücherein ( Kahihon'ya ) published his first comics as a professional artist. Tomobook -sha brought in 1955, when Umezu was nineteen, his two debut works Betsusekai and Mori no Kyodai out. Also about Shigeru Mizuki and Takao Saitō worked at that time for Kashihon publishers. In 1962 he moved to Tokyo and there drew manga for mainstream magazines such as Shōjo Club, Niji or Shōjo Friend, directed at adolescent girls. Examples of his shōjo manga from this period are no Kusuri Romance and Hebi shōjo. While the former is a love story with witty interjections, is Hebi shōjo (Eng. " snake girl " ) is one of horror manga, with whom he was to become a big name recognition.
Even as an illustrator of comics for boys ( shōnen ) he established himself. Its approximately 2,000 -page manga series Hyōryū Kyōshitsu appeared from 1972 to 1974 in the weekly manga magazine Shōnen Sunday, one of the most widely read manga magazines. The story is about how a primary school with over 800 students, is set in a future in which humanity has been some disasters behind. In the center Umezu presented the sixth grader Sho Takamatsu, who, like his classmates, meet strange creatures who have the planet in their power. Hyōryū Kyōshitsu won the 1975 Shogakukan Manga Award and was made into a film in 1987, directed Nobuhiko Obayashis.
He is with Makoto -chan, which appeared from 1976 to 1981 weekly in Shōnen Sunday and from approximately 4,300 pages another big success. The Gag Manga proposes unlike Hyōryū Kyōshitsu a humorous way one, the exclamation Gwashi! the protagonist was very well known in Japan.
For several magazines that are dedicated to an adult, male readership, ie publish his manga, he recorded works as Watashi wa Shingo and Kami no Hidarite Akuma no Migite. From 1990 to 1995 was published in Big Comic Spirits 14 -sai. In 4,100 pages, which appeared in twenty anthologies in Shogakukan, he describes the cock George, who flüchet from a research institution and finds herself in a devastated civilization the near future. The cock finally falls in love with a human girl.
Kazuo Umezu is also known as a person in Japan. He is regarded as eccentric and occurs in unusual shirts on frequently on Japanese television. He also worked as a musician ( he designed, for example, the title song for the 1980 anime film appeared to Makoto - chan) and published in 1975 the CD Yami no album.
Works (selection)
- Kuchi ga Mimi made sakeru Toki (口 が 耳 まで さける 時), 1960
- Romance no Kusuri agemasu! (ロマンス の 薬 あげ ます! ), 1961
- Hebi shōjo (へび 少女), 1966
- Nekome no shōjo (猫 目 の 少女), 1966
- Akanbo shōjo (赤 ん ぼ 少女), 1967
- Orochi (おろち), 1969-1970
- Iara (イアラ), 1970
- Again (アゲイン, agein ), 1971-1972
- Hyōryū Kyōshitsu (漂流 教室), 1972-1974
- Makoto - chan (まこと ちゃん), 1976-1981
- Watashi wa Shingo (わたし は 真悟), 1982-1986
- Kami no Hidarite Akuma no Migite (神の左手悪魔の右手), 1986-1989
- 14 -sai (14歳), 1990-1995