First announced to exist at Anime Expo 2019, Japanese publisher Kodansha has finally revealed that Katsuhiro Otomo’s The Complete Works Project will finally be published this year. At the initial project announcement, Otomo said that while he is looking forward to the project, he is also embarrassed by his earlier works.
The book will gather together every single manga that Otomo has worked on since his debut in 1971 in a massive collection. It will include his lesser-known, early works such as Domu but will also include his most popular and well-known title, Akira, among others. The announcement was made via a large graphic on the official website with the story being broken by Anime News Network.
If you’re above a certain age of adulthood, the odds are very good that you’ve seen the anime movie Akira directed by and based on the manga penned by Otomo. If you haven’t actually seen the movie yourself or read the original source material, the odds are still very good that you at least know about it through reputation alone, as it was one of the most popular movies in the world upon its gradual release on both sides of the Pacific. The series was also, at one point in time, slated for a Hollywood live-action adaptation that has since been shelved.
Otomo is more than just Akira, however. Beginning his career in the 1970s as a writer and penciler on series like A Gun Report and Short Peace, Otomo has penned over a dozen manga series and direct almost another dozen anime productions in a career that has spanned for five decades. The most recent update on his career, however, came back in 2018 when Otomo revealed in an interview that he is working on a new manga series. Sadly, he didn’t provide details about what the manga is about, but with any luck at all, the new series will see the light of day sooner rather than later and we’ll all be able to gorge ourselves on his amazing artwork.
Much like was said about Eiichiro Oda (author of the most popular manga series in Japan, One Piece), sci-fi fans around the world owe a great debt to Katsuhiro Otomo who helped pave the way and inspire many creators over multiple decades. Many of the most popular works in manga or anime would not exist today without his contributions to the genre and it can’t be overstated enough how great of a loss it will be when, hopefully, many years down the line, we lose this giant of the industry.
Source: Anime News Network