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●ANNOUNCEMENT● OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS 2nd period

 

The poster announcing OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS second period was revealed today in Otomo Zenshu X account and the OTOMO-COMPLETE Official website accompanied by some announcements.

The first is that the publication date  of the seventh batch of the first period consisting in the book   "Animation AKIRA Layouts & Key Frames 3" has been moved from June 2024 to November 2024 due to complications in the production process.

The second announcement is that the start of publication of the second period will start on August 30, before the end of the first period and will consist in these two books with a price tag of ¥3,500 (tax included) each:

★Vol.6:  G..... (short manga works from the late 70's and early 80's that follow Vol.5)
Available in Amazon JP: http://amzn.to/3VRvc6u

★Vol.12: AKIRA 1 (The manga as serialized in Young Magazine)
Available in Amazon JP:  http://amzn.to/45T5OSG

AKIRA was originally published in 120 parts of about 20 pages from 1982 to 1990  in Kodansha's Young Magazine. During that same period it was also collected in six books in which the chapters were lost and the story could be read as a continuum. The chapter title pages were later collected in the art book AKIRA CLUB published in 1995. Otomo also made many substantial changes, corrections and redraws for the final version collected in the books, this versions have been used for every international version ever since. Finally, AKIRA will be available in the same fashion in which it was published when serialized in Young Magazine for the first time, but this time with pristine print quality.

The poster also revealed the rest of the books that will complete the second period:

★Vol.20: Animation AKIRA
★Vol.7: APPLE PARADISE (short manga works from the early 80's that follow Vol.6 )
★Vol.13: AKIRA 2 (The manga as serialized in Young Magazine)
★Vol.31: STEAMBOY Storyboards 1
★Vol.14: AKIRA 3 (The manga as serialized in Young Magazine)
★Vol.32: STEAMBOY Storyboards 2
★Vol.28: MEMORIES
★Vol.33: STEAMBOY Layouts & Key Frames 1

TWEETS by OTOMO (June 26, 2024)
■A poster announcing the start of pre-orders for the second series of the complete collection has been made. Pre-orders will probably start next month. This image is my own pre-order. Please don't criticize me.

■These are some of the things I was influenced by when I was a high school freshman in 1970, until I was around 20 years old. Even though I only drew pictures, the rights issues were a real pain... 

■(On the meaning of ELSINORE that it's written in the back of his shirt) This is a Honda off-road bike. This is the series that became a hot topic because it was the first time Steven McQueen appeared in a commercial. I wanted this T-shirt so I went to a motorcycle shop in Ueno to buy one. 

■(Regarding the poster of BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA) It is amazing! I remember being deeply influenced by this film that I saw in Sendai when I was a high school student.

■(Regarding the third image starting from the bottom left) This is THE RITE OF SPRING conducted by Leonard Bernstein. This is the record version.

■(On the mention made to THE DAY THE FISH CAME OUT  in the afterword of the complete collection) Michael. Cacoyannis was great in ZORBA.  And the music by Mikis Theodorakis, who did the music for Z  is also great. 

■ (On filmmaker Yoshishige Yoshida  (吉田喜重)) I didn't really understand Yoshishige Yoshida's EROS+ MASSACRE (エロス+虐殺), but I found the TV Man Union's (テレビマンユニオン) THE EMPEROR'S CENTURY (天皇の世紀) interesting.

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●ANNOUNCEMENT● AKIRA REMIX CD


Katsuhiro Otomo has announced in X that the AKIRA Cel Art Exhibition Music CD will be released this summer. AKIRA REMIX produced entirely by Otomo himself features the remixes by Makoto Kubota (久保田麻琴), Yasuharu Konishi (小西康陽), and Kuniaki Hiijima (蓜島邦明) of the iconic soundtrack created by Shoji Yamashiro (山城 祥二) and the Geinoh Yamashirogumi (芸能山城組) group for the animated film AKIRA that celebrated it's 35th anniversary last year.

As part of OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS that it's beeing published by Kodansha, the AKIRA CEL ART EXHIBITION was held at Ikebukuro Mixalive Tokyo and Osaka Parco Gallery in August and October 2023, and AKIRA REMIX was created to be played at the background of these two events. 

The double CD  featuring an original new illustration by Otomo as a cover will be available on August 21 with the catalog number VICL-65922～23 and a retail price of ¥4,400 (tax incl.) 

Available for pre-order in Amazon Japan: https://amzn.to/3XTtEf8


TWEETS by OTOMO (June 25, 2024)
■I was finally able to announce the release of the CD. The event was in August last year... It took a whole year to make a CD contract. I can't believe Kodansha pays high salaries to people that don't know if they're working or not. How can I work with a company that does this kind of work?

■(regarding the release of the last batch of the first period of OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS) Please wait a little longer for that. I am sorry to have kept you waiting.

■(On the same subject) Tomorrow…

■(Regarding the creation of T-shirts based on the CD cover design) It's okay. I can't go into too much detail though. Please wait.

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●BOOKLET● ŌTOMO KATSUHIRO ZENSHŪ KAISETSU 4 SAYONARA NIPPON (大友克洋全集解説 4 さよならにっぽん )

  

Independent Katsuhiro Otomo researcher and archivist Jun'ya Suzuki (鈴木淳也), who in 1999 started the website Apple Paradise: Otomo Katsuhiro Data Base has published the fifth of a series of booklets to accompany the KATSUHIRO OTOMO COMPLETE WORKS collection that is currently being published by Kodansha. This booklet commentaries correspond to Otomo's early manga works collected in the book OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS 4: SAYONARA NIPPON (さよならにっぽん)

These COMMENTARY SERIES booklets scheduled to be produced for all volumes will include commentaries regarding each volume and as they have the same size as the books that will accompany, they will work  perfectly as dividers since they  prevent vinyl covers from sticking to each other.

The booklet was sold for the first time today in COMITIA 148 (コミティア148) in the stand TO13b ŌTOMO KATSUHIRO KENKYŪ (と13b 大友克洋研究). You can follow and contact Jun'ya Suzuki on Instagram and Twitter.


BOOKLET DETAILS
Author: Jun'ya Suzuki (鈴木淳也)
Release date: 2024-V-26
Language: Japanese
Number of pages: -
Size: 248 x 172mm 
Retail price: ¥1,200


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●BOOKLET● ŌTOMO KATSUHIRO ZENSHŪ KAISETSU 3 HIGHWAY STAR (大友克洋全集解説 3 ハイウェイスター )

 

Independent Katsuhiro Otomo researcher and archivist Jun'ya Suzuki (鈴木淳也), who in 1999 started the website Apple Paradise: Otomo Katsuhiro Data Base has published the fourth of a series of booklets to accompany the KATSUHIRO OTOMO COMPLETE WORKS collection that is currently being published by Kodansha. This booklet commentaries correspond to Otomo's early manga works collected in the book OTOMO THE COMPLETE WORKS 3: HIGHWAY STAR (ハイウェイスター )

These COMMENTARY SERIES booklets scheduled to be produced for all volumes will include commentaries regarding each volume and as they have the same size as the books that will accompany, they will work  perfectly as dividers since they  prevent vinyl covers from sticking to each other.

The booklet was sold for the first time today in COMITIA 147 (コミティア147) in the stand CHI42a ŌTOMO KATSUHIRO KENKYŪ (ち42a大友克洋研究). You can follow and contact Jun'ya Suzuki on Instagram and Twitter.


BOOKLET DETAILS
Author: Jun'ya Suzuki (鈴木淳也)
Release date: 2024-II-25
Language: Japanese
Number of pages: 39
Size: 248 x 172mm 
Retail price: ¥1,000


●FOREWORD● RINTARŌ's MA VIE EN 24 IMAGES PER SECONDE

  

Katsuhiro Otomo has written the foreword to the first comic written by his friend and animation director RINTARŌ (りんたろう) with whom he has collaborated many times in the past. The book was first released in French language by KANA and was presented in this year's 51st edition of ANGOULÊME FESTIVAL where several screenings and meetings were devoted to him.


MA VIE EN 24 IMAGES PER SECONDE narrates Rintarō's  journey from post-war Japan to 2001 and the release of the film METROPOLIS, based on Osamu Tezuka's (手塚 治虫) manga and with screenplay by Otomo himself. This journey is made of meetings, opportunities, endless evenings, jazz, cigarettes, but above all cinema, a passion that was passed on to him by his father and which gave him the desire to become a director very early on. And it is animated cinema that offered Rintarō this opportunity. 

You can read Otomo's foreword in French and the first pages of the comic here. 


FOREWORD by KATSUHIRO OTOMO
It was in 1958 that HAKUJADEN (白蛇伝 ), the first Japanese animated feature film in color, was made. Then came SHŌNEN SARUTOBI SASUKE (少年猿飛佐助 ), then, in 1960, SAIYUKI (西遊記) adapted from BOKU NO SON GOKU (ぼくのそんごくう) manga by Osamu Tezuka, who was credited in the film as "Original author responsible for the narrative structure'. Indeed, knowing that Tezuka was very influenced by the Disney animations that he loved, TOEI ANIMATION (東映アニメーション) , which wanted to become the Disney of Japan, had asked the mangaka to participate in the pre-production, writing and directing of the film .

Unfortunately, things didn't go the way Tezuka hoped. It's easy to imagine how difficult it was for a young, popular and promising mangaka to get along with the artisan blacksmiths of animation. He must have felt immense frustration and bitterness. At least that's a figment of my imagination. Apologies if I extrapolate!

But isn't Osamu Tezuka a man who uses failure to bounce back? This is how he created his own company, MUSHI PRODUCTION (虫プロダクション), in 1961, just a year after Sayuki. Was he very angry? Had this harsh ordeal triggered a real trigger in him? Still, the following year, he directed ARU MACHIKADO NO MONOGATARI (ある街角の物語) and the first episode of TETSUWAN ATOM (鉄腕アトム ).

From the start, Mushi Production operated recklessly, since, in the event of a financial deficit, Tezuka drew his mangas to cover debts.

The first Japanese television animation, Tetsuwan Atom, was created from Tezuka's own manga, so it was not subject to adaptation rights. It even ultimately generated revenue through the sale of derivative products, and this success led to the proliferation of animated television series. Rintarō's comic strip clearly shows that at the time, at the dawn of this flourishing industry, Mushi Production even ensured human resources devoid of any experience because its production system seemed attractive to certain young people. Unlike Toei animators, endowed with a real educational background and solid technical training, those of Mushi Production launched into the adventure simply being pushed by the spirit of entrepreneurship: the one who has the greatest passion is capable of doing for the best.

How exciting it was to acquire the know-how alongside older animators or the same age, despite the pressure of deadlines and the mountain of work that was piling up! In Japan, this spirit still seems to prevail in this industry.

Mushi Production faced some criticism because its preferred themes were neither educational nor emotion-based, but rather entertainment-oriented. The fact remains that society has enabled previously unknown artists to flourish. And, quite naturally, Japanese animation has moved towards the adaptation of popular manga, since young artists have naturally followed the example of Tezuka, the founder of Mushi Production, who himself adapted his own manga. one after the other. Of course, there were successes and failures!

In the 1970s, television animation therefore developed alongside the rise of manga. Japan was probably the only country experiencing such a phenomenon at the time. Rintarō, too, began directing within Mushi Production, directing works such as JUNGLE TAITEI SUSUME LEO! (ジャングル大帝 進めレオ！) or SABU TO ICHI (佐武と市), before leaving the company to become independent. His series JETTER MARS (ジェッターマルス) , GRAND PRIX NO TAKA (アローエンブレム・グランプリの鷹) and UCHŪ KAIZOKU CAPTAIN HARLOCK (宇宙海賊キャプテンハーロック)  attracted the attention of the president of TOEI so much so that he entrusted Rintarō with the direction of the feature film GINGA TETSUDO 999 (銀河鉄道９９９)  which was a huge success. This is how animated television series reached the level of quality of a feature film. Subsequently, feature films were screened in international festivals, then occupied a dominant place with the arrival of video cassettes, laserdiscs and DVDs. And it is therefore thanks to the influence of these precursors that today young people are creating original animations all over the world.

By reading this comic, which closely combines the history of animation with Rintarô's personal life, from his childhood to his adolescence and adulthood, I realize how much I owe to my elders, the "anarchists" from the Showa era (1926-1989), which I warmly thank.

大友克洋



BOOK DETAILS
Publisher: KANA
Release date: 2024-I-26
Language: French
Number of pages: 256
Size: 22.8 x 2.8 x 30 cm
Retail price: 27.9€
ISBN-10: 2505076383
ISBN-13: 978-2505076384

AVAILABILITY
Amazon JP: -

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