Writing
Naoki Urasawa
Born 1960-01-02 · Fuchu, Tokyo, Japan
Naoki Urasawa is a Japanese manga artist and musician. He has been drawing manga since he was four years old, and for most of his professional career has created two series simultaneously. The stories to many of these were co-written in collaboration with his former editor, Takashi Nagasaki. Urasawa has been called one of the artists that changed the history of manga and has won numerous awards, including the Shogakukan Manga Award three times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize twice, and the Kodansha Manga Award once. By December 2021, his various works had over 140 million copies in circulation worldwide.
Acting credits
2.0A sequel to the 1980 movie The Legend of the Stardust Brothers. As well as being a rock musical comedy, it also borrows elements from other genres such as road movies, westerns, and meta fiction.
The Brand New Legend of the Stardust Brothers
2018
NRFilmed in Japan, this program looks beyond the stereotypes to objectively examine the history of manga, how manga are drawn, and manga's influence on Japanese life as illustrated by cosplay bars, where people dress up as their favorite characters; manga kissa, 24/7 manga cafes; and Comicket, the twice-annual comics market that draws hundreds of thousands of visitors. The program also introduces viewers to a cross-section of mangaka icons: Vagabond creator Takehiko Inoue; Naoki Urasawa, author of The Pushman and Other Stories; Jiro Taniguchi; Yoshihiro Tatsumi; and Kan Takahama.
Manga World
2005
NROsamu Tezuka is known as the “God of Manga.” He was the genius Japanese artist who pioneered manga and anime after WWII. He’s often compared to Walt Disney, but that’s a disservice to Tezuka —that’s how much he contributed and how influential he was.
TEZUKA! God of Manga
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Behind the camera
6.7In 1969, Kenji, an elementary school kid and his friends built a secret base during their summer holidays. They fantasized that they had to fight villains who were out to conquer the world and wrote them in the Book of Prophecies. Years later in 1997, Kenji becomes a convenience store manager and leads a regular life after giving up his dreams to become a rock star. His boring life is suddenly turned upside down when his old classmate dies mysteriously and an entire family in the neighbourhood disappears. At the same time, a religious cult and its mysterious leader, Friend emerges and a strange chain of events duplicating exactly the events described in the Book of Prophecies follow. Is this the beginning of the end of the world? Who is Friend?
20th Century Boys: Beginning of the End
2008
5.0Kazuyoshi Saitо made an offer to collaborate with Naoki Urasawa, with whom he has a close relationship, after he saw Urasawa's rough drawing of a boy who strummed a broom like a guitar. The image matched what Saitо completely had in mind for his song "Boy." Urasawa created a storyboard, and completed an animation on his own for the first time. Urasawa also illustrated the song's album cover.
Boy
2021