1. Tetsuo Hara is best known for co-creating the post-apocalyptic martial arts series Fist of the North Star with writer Buronson, which is one of the best-selling manga in history with over 100 million copies in circulation.
18 Facts About Tetsuo Hara
1. 2.
Tetsuo Hara began drawing characters from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor Leo, as well as Ikki Kajiwara and Naoki Tsuji's Tiger Mask in first and second grade.
3.
Tetsuo Hara had decided to become a manga artist by second and third grade.
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Tetsuo Hara then entered the design program at his high school, joined the "manga gekiga club," and submitted entries to manga competitions run by magazines.
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Tetsuo Hara found inspiration by visiting the workplace of Osamu Akimoto, who was an alumnus of his high school.
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When Tetsuo Hara approached Weekly Shonen Jump about becoming a professional manga artist, editor Nobuhiko Horie liked his detailed artwork but noticed his poor story writing skills.
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Tetsuo Hara began working as an assistant to Yoshihiro Takahashi and attended manga classes supervised by Kazuo Koike.
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Tetsuo Hara's first serialized work in Weekly Shonen Jump was Iron Don Quixote, a motocross manga which lasted only ten weeks.
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Horie later claimed that the senior editor was willing to let Tetsuo Hara continue the series, but Horie chose to end it because he was confident the artist could do better.
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Tetsuo Hara then achieved fame with the publication of Fist of the North Star in 1983, which he co-created with Buronson.
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In 1998, Tetsuo Hara reunited with Horie, whom he had not worked with since Fist of the North Star, to create Kokenryoku Oryo Sosakan Nakabo Rintaro.
12.
Tetsuo Hara was bewildered as to what office politics had to do with creating manga, and he and Horie both left Shueisha after Kokenryoku Oryo Sosakan Nakabo Rintaro ended in 2000.
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Tetsuo Hara serialized Fist of the Blue Sky, a prequel to Fist of the North Star, in Weekly Comic Bunch from 2001 until the magazine's final issue in 2010.
14.
Originally published weekly, the manga changed to a semi-regular schedule after Tetsuo Hara was diagnosed with keratoconus.
15.
In 2021, Tetsuo Hara said that rather than creating work on his own, he was more interested in working with younger artists to create works as a team and pass on his forty years of experience.
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Tetsuo Hara has cited Fujio Akatsuka, Shotaro Ishinomori, Tetsuya Chiba, and Ryoichi Ikegami as some of his influences.
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Tetsuo Hara said that Ikegami had the biggest impact on his art, as the "realism and luster" in his characters show the "power" of gekiga.
18.
Tetsuo Hara admits that from the very beginning of his career, he has never been good at creating the stories of manga.