Excerpts from AKIRA Issue #2
Article title - Katsuhiro Otomo

	The creator of 'AKIRA' was born in April of 1954 in Japan's
Miyagi Prefecture, an agriculture and fishing province some 400
kilometers northeast of Tokyo.  He grew up there and attended Sanuma
High School, which, for a rural school, seems particularly favored by the
comic book muse.  Another prominent comics artist, Yoji Kamata, is also
a graduate, and, some years earlier, one of Japan's most famous comics
creators, Shotaro Ishinomori, known world-wide for his 'Cyborg 009',
'Kamen Rider', and current best-seller, 'Japan Inc.'
	In high school, Otomo became, in his own words, "crazy about the
movies."  American films of the period in particular seemed to be 
capturing the new spirit of youthful unrest and rebellion all over the
world.  Movies such as 'Bonnie and Clyde', 'Easy Rider', 'Five Easy
Pieces', and 'The Strawberry Statement' had particular impact upon him
at the time and some of their sensibility can still be detected in 
'AKIRA' and other work.
	Soon after graduating high school in 1973, Otomo moved to Tokyo.  
His goal was to become a comics artist.  He achieved this in August of 1973
when his first published work, an adaptation of the Prosper Merimee short 
novel 'Mateo Falcone', appeared in the weekly comics magazine, Action.
	Over the next few years, Otomo created a number of short stories in
comic form.  These would range from twenty to thirty pages, about the 
length of a full comic in the US.  But in Japan it is not unusual for an
on-going comics story to run a thousand pages or more.  Customarily,
stories first appear in serialized segments of twenty to thirty pages in 
a weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly comics magazine and then, if popular,
are collected into books of around 200 pages.  During this period, Otomo's
pieces were most regularly appearing in Action magazine.  Later, they
were collected into book form beginning with 'Short Piece' in 1979.
This collection was followed by 'Highway Star' (October 1979), 'Good
Weather' (March 1981), and 'Boogie Woogie Waltz' (May 1982).
	Having achieved a promising degree of success and attention with
these short works, Otomo began to apply his skills to longer material.
In 1979, publication began on 'Fire Ball',  a story built around a human
versus mega-computer theme.  Though it appeared in a limited circulation
magazine and is, to date, still uncompleted, 'Fire Ball' marked the
beginning of Otomo's interest in the science-fiction action genre and
established his following among high school and college students deeply 
addicted to the visual culture.  'Fire Ball' was the natural forerunner
of Otomo's two most acclaimed works, 'Domu' and 'AKIRA'.


	Along with other comics work--such as 'Sayonara Nippon' (Good-bye
Japan), a tragi-comic story of a Japanese karate expert's failed attempt
to become a hero in New York, 'Kibun-wa mo Senso' (Feel Like War), based
upon an original script by Toshihiko Yahagi about a Japanese youth in China
during World War III, and 'Henzeru-to-Gureteru' (Hanzel and Gretel), a 
collection of parodies on Grimm's Fairy Tales and other classics--Otomo
has remained interested and involved in film.
	In 1982, he took about six months off to make his own sixteen
millimeter film, 'Jyu-O Warerani' (Give Me a Gun, Give Me Freedom).  He
produced it without any commercial backing, casting it with his own 
friends.  When finished, it played at Kinokuniya Hall, a Tokyo theater
for avant garde plays and film.  Otomo has also continued to work in 
animated film as well as television commercials for such clients as
Suntory, Canon, and Honda.  Currently he has just completed the 
animated movie of 'AKIRA' for which he acted as director, scenarist,
designer and illustrator.