Today is the 90th birthday of Osamu Tezuka, the "god of Japanese manga."
You may not know this manga artist, screenwriter, director, and producer who has a groundbreaking influence on the Japanese anime industry, but you must have seen his works, such as Astro Boy, Doctor Strange Black Jack, Bird of Fire, Forest Emperor, Sad Belladona, and a total of 700 manga.
Even Taiwanese film master Yang Dechang idolized him.
And now, nearly 30 years have passed since he left us.
Today, 1928, Osamu Tezuka was born in Toyonaka-cho, Toyono-gun, Osaka Prefecture, Japan, and was born on the birthday of Emperor Meiji, so his original name was Osamu Tezuka; because he loved insects since childhood, he took the pen name of "Osamu Tezuka" in 1939 and changed his original name "Zhi" to the Japanese name of the walking insect that is pronounced very similarly in Japanese. The Chinese character is written as "to cure insects".
Later, "Osamu Tezuka" became his pen name.
At the same time, he still uses his original name Tezuka in the name of a medical scientist.
He was also the first manga artist in Japan to introduce the assistant system and corporatization, which greatly promoted the enlightenment of Japanese manga in the future.
Fujiko F. Fujio, author of the famous manga "Doraemon", once worked as an assistant to Osamu Tezuka.
In 1945, he entered the Medical SpecialTy Department affiliated to Osaka University, graduated in 1951, and passed the national examination for physicians the following year. In 1961, he received his M.D. degree from Nara Prefectural Medical University for his thesis "Electron Microscopy Research on Membrane Structure in Heterotypic Sperm Cells".
Since 1946, he has serialized the four-panel manga "The Diary of a Pony" in the Shōnen Konokuni Shimbun (now the "Daily Elementary School News"), and has since embarked on the road of manga.
In 1947, the manga Shinhoshima, based on The Original Shichima Sakai, was released, which introduced a large number of filmmaking methods into manga, and once it was launched, it was welcomed, and people began to accept the concept of "new manga".
Since then, he has successively created a large number of popular long-form works such as "The Forest Emperor", "Asper Boy", "Strange Doctor Black Jack", "Little Flying Dragon", "Three-Eyed Child", etc., and has won various awards many times, among which "Sapphire Prince" is recognized as Japan's first girl story manga.
The Firebird, which began serialization in 1967, was the pinnacle of his creative career, and by the time he was dying, the last chapter of the work, The Modern Chapter, had not yet been completed.
In 1961, the "Osamu Tezuka Production Animation Department" was established, and the following year began to operate under the name of "Bug Production Company", and a large number of excellent animation works such as Japan's first multi-episode TV animation iron arm Astro Boy, the first color multi-episode TV animation Forest Emperor, and the first 2-hour TV animation special "1 Million Years Journey to the Earth Panda Book" were born here.
In his later years, various experimental animations were highly praised by the international community.
On February 9, 1989, he passed away from Kojimachi Hanzoi Clinic in Chiyoda-ku, Kyoto, with gastric cancer, which was 60 years old.
Osamu Tezuka died at the manga table with a paintbrush in his hand.
It is said that Osamu Tezuka muttered to himself when he was dying, "Give me a pencil." ”