Yoshihiro tatsumi biography definition

The Man, The Manga, The Movie

The news came through to me in a short email yesterday, March 7th 2015: “Sensei passed away today.” Yoshihiro Tatsumi is the ‘sensei’ or grand master of ‘gekiga’, a term he coined for the darker, more dramatic form of manga in Japan.

His innovations were vitally important for Japanese comics and his lifetime’s work stands as some of the most psychologically powerful and humane narratives, not only in manga but in global comics culture. To mark his passing, I am re-presenting an interview with Eric Khoo, director of the Tatsumi animated documentary, and a close friend of Tatsumi’s, who emailed me me the sad news.

Personally, I was honoured to meet Tatsumi when he was a guest at the Angoulême International Comics Festival in France, with his agent, AX editor Mitsuhiro Asakawa, shortly after my book Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics was published in 2004.

I devoted a who