Profile

Birthdate : 02 / 01 / 1960

Nationality : Japan

Jobs : Mangaka

For its 13th Impact, Japan Expo is glad to welcome the author of such famous works as Monster, Pluto or 20th Century Boys as its Manga guest of honor: Naoki URASAWA!

Naoki URASAWA: conference and signing sessions
on Friday & Saturday at Japan Expo

And in showcase with Hemenway on Sunday at 3.45 pm

Biography

Born on January 2, 1960 in Tôkyô, Naoki URASAWA graduated in economy but has been drawing and playing music since high school. In 1982, he got a prize as Best Young Mangaka, from the publisher Shôgakukan.

As he is working as an assistant for Shôgakukan, he published his first science fiction story, Beta, in 1983. Then he releases his first successful series such as Pineapple Army, Master Keaton or Yawara!. The latter, a sports series about Jûdô, is adapted as an Anime, a movie and a video game, and allows him to be rewarded with the Shôgakukan Manga Prize.

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After Happy!, Naoki URASAWA proceeded to more personal works. In 1995 Monster was published, a darker psychological thriller than his previous releases. The series was a success and it was adapted as an Anime, and then as a film, and awarded him several prizes, among which the Shôgakukan Manga Prize and the Great Prize of the Osamu TEZUKA Cultural Prize.

In 2000, he started a new thriller and published 20^th Century Boys. He is crowned with success once more and gets the Shôgakukan Manga Prize , the Kôdansha Manga Prize and the Series Prize at the French Festival d'Angoulême.

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Three years later, he started Pluto, a detective science fiction series adapted from the story arc The Greatest Robot on Earth from the Manga Tetsuwan Atom by Osamu TEZUKA, thanks to which he got again the Great Prize of the Osamu TEZUKA Cultural Prize. He was also rewarded at Japan Expo where the ACBD (French association of comics critics and journalists) gave him the Asia prize during the Japan Expo Awards in 2010. In 2011, he got the intergeneration prize of the Festival d’Angoulême.

Since he finished 20^th Century Boys and Pluto, Naoki URASAWA has been working on Billy Bat which will be released in France next March.

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