Katsuhiro Otomo, now 63, was born in 1954 in Motocho, Noborime, Miyagi Prefecture, Japan. At that time, Japanese cities had not yet recovered from the bombardment of the world war, and it was only nine years after the end of World War II. His birth coincided with the destruction of Japanese cities, as if he were destined to be a teenager who grew up on the ruins.
Everyone says that if Miyazaki was the pioneer who made Japanese animation go global, Katsuyo Otomo would be his successor.
In his early years, his studio was in the remote suburbs, the dull and harmonious life of the old-fashioned residents, the dim lights in the small bars, the bad boys who played in the streets from time to time... These very ordinary resident lives have left a deep impression on Katsuyo Otomo, and have also caused his works to always set the protagonist as the role of a civilian hero, which is the reason why his stories are portrayed with warm and simple colors of real life. In many of his works, he can see the citizens living in the middle and lower classes of society becoming the people who dominate the ending of the story.
His first creation was in the form of manga, and he began serializing manga in magazines in 1973, and became the first manga artist to win the 4th Japan SF Awards in 1983 for "Children's Dreams". Shortly thereafter, he ventured into the animation industry. He began by taking on some design roles in the animation production process (the movie "Magic Wars"), and then began to officially step into the vast project of animation production.
First as the director of the animated short film "Labyrinth Story", it was officially released in 1987, telling the story of a little girl who is attracted to the maze. Then came his pinnacle: "Akira" (also known as "Akira the Warrior of Light"), this work is like Katsuyo Otomo's child, adapted from his own manga, but also directed by himself, lasted nine years, spent the most money in the history of Japanese animation films to produce a work, but also got a corresponding reward, Akira also magically predicted the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games. Then his second child, The Old Man Z, was born, based on a pervasive social problem: an aging population. Then came his Memories Trilogy, which began with this animated film of three stories, and his work began to incorporate Westernized ideas. In 2004, the production of "Steam Boy" made Katsuyo Otomo's work attract a lot of attention, with Victorian Manchester and London as the background, improving a lot of pictures and allowing the audience to experience a visual feast. Steam Boy has also been rated as the pinnacle of Japanese animation film history. In 2006, Katsuyo Otomo served as the supervisor of the live-action version of Bug Master. Then there's 2012's "Fire Town," a 13-minute film that won the Grand Prize in the Animation Category at the 16th Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival in Tokyo. Just this year, "Akira" was adopted by american film companies and adapted into a commercial blockbuster, and Katsuyo Otomo also personally went to the scene to participate in the production.
Katsuyo Otomo's animations always give people a full sense of "realism". On the screen, his works will not give people a flat feeling like ordinary comics, but have a deep space, producing a sense of intimidating realism, in order to attract readers more, he will set the protagonist as an ordinary but prominent character, coupled with the ups and downs of the storyline, becoming a unique style in the animation industry. He is also very obsessed with machines, and every technological development is reflected in the progress of machine use, and the various steam engines with complex structures in "Steam Boy" are also very creative.
As the public knows, Katsuyo Otomo's animation is best at all kinds of "destruction" of the real world.
According to incomplete statistics, Tokyo alone was razed to the ground by him three times. He is always expressing dissatisfaction with the real world, creating contradictions between humanistic society and the development of science and technology, he lets human beings suffer from the consequences of self-inflicted evil in the future world, constantly exposing the dark side of human nature again and again, with the destruction of cities, human beings killing each other, machines evolving to the point where human beings cannot control, to tell us whether science and technology is the guarantee of a happy life in the future.
His "destruction" seems to be bashing an increasingly false society, and the civilian hero he portrays is successfully contrasted with the high-class people in society, the flying car boy in "Akila" today, and the scientist descendant Ray in "Steam Boy". Every time you watch his animation, you can deeply appreciate Katsuyo Otomo's disappointment and helplessness in modern society, and can only use his fictional characters to complete the rescue of the city in the story.
A boy with extraordinary abilities stands on the ruins of Tokyo, and everyone will say that this is Katsuyo Otomo. Hayao Miyazaki also praised his works. His whole person is like a disaster, sweeping the Japanese animation film industry, using the arrival of the end times to destroy human illusions of a better future, every shot reveals the real world, and his heart is always standing on the ruins like an ordinary teenager hoping to one day save this increasingly dilapidated society.
Text: lee@ Io Anime