Naoki Urasawa is a Japanese manga artist and musician.
29 Facts About Naoki Urasawa
2.
Naoki Urasawa has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously.
3.
South Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho called him "the greatest storyteller of our time", while Dominican-American writer Junot Diaz proclaimed Naoki Urasawa to be a national treasure in Japan.
4.
Naoki Urasawa cited Osamu Tezuka as one of his heroes, being particularly fond of his manga Phoenix.
5.
When Naoki Urasawa visited Shogakukan to apply for a business job, he decided to bring some manga he had drawn out of curiosity.
6.
Naoki Urasawa ended up submitting manga for their 1982 New Manga Artist Award, which his unpublished work "Return" won.
7.
Naoki Urasawa then created the short serialized work Dancing Policeman the following year.
8.
Naoki Urasawa began his first major serialized work, Pineapple Army, in 1985 in the semimonthly Big Comic Original.
9.
Naoki Urasawa was the illustrator of the series, while Kazuya Kudo was its writer.
10.
When Pineapple Army ended, Naoki Urasawa began Master Keaton for Big Comic Original in November 1988.
11.
In 2008, Naoki Urasawa began working for Kodansha, serializing Billy Bat in Morning.
12.
Oricon held a poll on the Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga in 2010, mangaka being the Japanese word for a manga artist, and Naoki Urasawa came in tenth.
13.
In 2011, Naoki Urasawa illustrated a picture book adaptation of Kosuke Hamada's story Red Oni Cries.
14.
Naoki Urasawa began writing a sequel to Master Keaton in 2012 titled Master Keaton Remaster.
15.
Between 2013 and 2014, Naoki Urasawa contributed to the essay series "The Old Guys" that was published in Shueisha's Jump X magazine.
16.
An art exhibition of Naoki Urasawa's work was on display in Tokyo from January 16 to March 31,2016, before moving to Osaka from November 26 to January 25,2017.
17.
Naoki Urasawa created a short three-page manga about 1960s British rock band the Beatles time-traveling to 2016.
18.
That year Naoki Urasawa began the limited series Mujirushi: The Sign of Dreams in a collaboration with France's Louvre Museum.
19.
In January 2018, Naoki Urasawa attended the 45th Angouleme International Comics Festival in France, where he received the Fauve Special Award and the Fauve Polar SNCF Special Award for mystery.
20.
Naoki Urasawa participated in an artist discussion and book signing on opening day.
21.
Naoki Urasawa was a 2019 nominee for entry into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame.
22.
In 2020, Naoki Urasawa drew advertisements for the Samsonite Red luggage brand, and was chosen to create one of the official posters for the 2020 Summer Olympics.
23.
Naoki Urasawa directed and illustrated the music video, and illustrated the cover art, for Kazuyoshi Saito's March 2021 digital single "Boy".
24.
Naoki Urasawa had an acting role in the December 2022 film The Flower in the Sky, portraying poet Haruo Sato.
25.
Fusanosuke Natsume said that prior to entering university, Naoki Urasawa's style showed influence from Shinji Nagashima and Osamu Tezuka's 1970s work, but went on to claim that in 1979 it became aligned with that of Katsuhiro Otomo.
26.
Naoki Urasawa himself described his approach to manga as similar to storyboarding a movie, and acknowledged his work as adult-oriented, stating that even as a child he never liked manga aimed at children.
27.
For most of his career, Naoki Urasawa has written two different series simultaneously.
28.
Naoki Urasawa wrote and performed the song "Bob Lennon ", which was released on a CD included in the 2002 first pressing of volume 11 of 20th Century Boys.
29.
Naoki Urasawa wrote a demo for a song titled "Kanashiki LA Tengoku" and sent it to musician Mike Viola, who finished the track and invited Naoki Urasawa to Los Angeles to play on it.