| Masami Kurumada | |
| Birth Date: | December 6, 1953 |
| Birth Place: | Tsukishima, Chuo, Tokyo, Japan |
| Nationality: | Japanese |
| Occupation: | Manga artist, composer, producer |
| Years Active: | 1974 - present |
| Employer: | Shueisha, Akita Shoten, Kurumada Pro |
| Known For: | Saint Seiya Ring ni Kakero Fūma no Kojirō B'T X Ring ni Kakero 2 |
| Website: | Official website |
is a Japanese manga artist and writer, known for specializing in fighting manga featuring bishōnen and magical boys.
He is the founder of the manga studio Kurumada Productions or Kurumadapro for short. He achieved fame as the creator of popular manga, such as Ring ni Kakero, Fūma no Kojirō, Saint Seiya and B't X. The male characters in his works often display very masculine qualities and traits, and display courage through sacrifice, selflessness and true heroism. He has won the Best Success award with Saint Seiya and the Best Inspiration award with Ring ni Kakero.
Kurumada's first work was Otoko Raku, which earned him an award in a manga contest for aspiring manga artist, and became assistant to professional manga artists. Some time later, he debuted as a professional manga artist in 1974 with his manga Sukeban Arashi, and achieved his first hit three years later when he started writing and drawing Ring ni Kakero, which brought him recognition as a popular manga author, and lasted five years, and he considers it his favorite creation. A practicer of the martial arts in his younger days, the influence this has exerted on his various works is worthy of mention.
Also, in the same manner as many manga artists today, Kurumada employs the revered Osamu Tezuka's Star System manga technique, which is essentially resorting to the use of a stable cast of characters in his various works (characters keep the same appearance and personality, but sometimes the author gives them new names and different roles than in previous works). Because of this, the main characters of his works most of the time bear a resemblance to Takane Ryūji, the protagonist of Ring ni Kakero. The main characters of his subsequent works have almost the same appearance and personality of Ryūji, specifically Jingi Kikukawa (Otoko Zaka), Kojirō (Fūma no Kojirō), Seiya (Saint Seiya), Teppei Takamiya (B't X), Shō (Silent Knight Shō), Aoi Tendō (Aoi Tori no Shinwa), Rindō Kenzaki (Ring ni Kakero 2), among others.
Besides Kurumada, other renowned manga artists that resort to the master Tezuka's technique include legendary authors Leiji Matsumoto, Monkey Punch and Shōtarō Ishinomori or Clamp. Clamp was heavily influenced by Kurumada's works, and they began their career as manga authors creating doujinshi based on Kurumada's characters. It is also known that anime adaptations aren't much to his liking, he prefers manga. He agreed that his works Fūma no Kojirō, Saint Seiya, Ring ni Kakero and B't X were adapted to anime, to follow the long-time tradition of popular manga having an animated adaptation.
His drawing style is very classic, reminiscent from the manga/anime aesthetics more predominant in the 1960s and 1970s, albeit a constant flaw in his art is an inconsistent trace and proportion unbalance. He often draws his characters as if seen from a low perspective. His drawings can sometimes seem rough, but the improvement in his artistic technique is evident when comparing older works to more recent ones. His coloring style is almost exclusively realistic, unlike the vast majority of manga artists, who often resort to the use of non-natural colors for the hair or eyes of their characters, although with the publication of Saint Seiya Next Dimension volumes totally in color, the addition of new characters with non-natural hair colors occurs often.
Certain graphics elements characteristic of his style can be found all over his works, mostly during fight sequences, having become widely known. Fans have created terms to refer to them such as, meaning "Kurumada Fall", which designates the typical head-first falling characters, and, meaning "Kurumada Launch", which refers to characters that are projected high into the air by opponents, to name a few.
Recurrent themes in his works are friendship, courage, redemption and sacrifice. Masculine virtue and qualities, honesty and honor are also traits often found in his characters. Female characters in his works mostly play a much lesser role, but several ones with key roles can also be found, such as Rei Kojinyama (Sukeban Arashi), Kiku Takane (Ring ni Kakero) and Saori Kido (Saint Seiya).
Kurumada has stated in interviews that he obtains some creative influence from yesterday's authors considered masters of the manga medium today, such as Hiroshi Motomiya, Sanpei Shirato and Mitsuteru Yokoyama. He specially considers that Motomiya's works had a very strong impact and influence on him.[1]
Kurumada also draws inspiration from universal knowledge and folklore, such as Greek mythology, Japanese and Chinese mythology, Buddhist and Hinduist doctrine, Trascendental philosophies, and classic works of literature, such as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, and Outlaws of the Marsh, to name a few.
His interest in boxing, wrestling and martial arts is well known, and he maintains close relations with renowned personalities of those circles. As he states in his website, he likes to drink with friends and to practice photography while jogging.[2]
Among his works that have been cancelled due to failing to attract fans: Otoko Zaka, Silent Knight Shō and Aoi Tori no Shinwa. His works that suffered popularity decrease: B't X (which he successfully concluded without facing cancellation), and Saint Seiya. In Saint Seiyas case, Kurumada was forced by Shueisha, his publisher, to finish the manga after the Hades Arc, in 1991. He put his manga in hiatus after he finished the mentioned arc, and resumed it in 2006 with Saint Seiya Next Dimension. The anime adaptation of Saint Seiya experienced a popularity decrease during the anime-only Asgard arc, while the popularity of the original manga was still strong; the anime back in 1989, was in pre-production of the episodes that would adapt the Hades arc of the manga. Because of low popularity of the anime adaptation, the project was suspended and remained so until 2003, when it was resumed and the Hades arc of the manga finally was adapted to animation. The episodes that adapted the two final volumes of the manga were aired in between May and August 2008, finally leaving Kurumada's manga completely adapted to anime.
In 2004, Kurumada celebrated 30 years as a professional manga artist, and that same year two of his older and best known works experienced a resurfacing. The original Ring ni Kakero was adapted to anime, 27 years after its manga debut, and as mentioned before, the Saint Seiya anime adaptation was resumed in 2003 and an attempt to start the Zeus Chapter was made with the release of the Saint Seiya Tenkai-Hen Josō ~Overture~ movie in 2004, which was planned to continue the story with the subsequent release of OVAs, but due to discrepancies between Kurumada and Toei Animation, the project failed and was abandoned. Kurumada still plans to publish the "Zeus Chapter", written and drawn by him, in manga form in the near future, by 2012, a considerable amount of elements from it have already been revealed by Kurumada in Saint Seiya Next Dimension and he is set to continue doing so in the next instalments of that work in the japanese summer in 2013.
Kurumada's works have had influence on manga authors and related media. Worthy of mention is Yudetamago's Kinnikuman, Hiroshi Kawamoto's Tenkū Senki Shurato, Clamp's Magic Knight Rayearth, Kōichi Tokita's Mobile Fighter G Gundam, Hajime Yatate and Ryuichi Hoshino's Yoroiden Samurai Troopers, Yoshihiro Togashi's YuYu Hakusho, videogames such as the World Heroes series and The King of Fighters series, among others. References to his works by other authors can be found in the mentioned videogames and in popular manga, such as Kōsuke Fujishima's Aa! Megami-sama, Kenjirō Hata's Hayate no Gotoku, Chika Umino's Honey & Clover, Tite Kubo's BLEACH, and their respective anime adaptations, among others.
French director Louis Leterrier has cited Kurumada and his manga Saint Seiya having a great impact on him since his youth.[3] In 2010, Masami Kurumada was contacted by Warner Brothers to collaborate in a project for Leterrier's mythologically themed motion picture Clash of the Titans, remake of the original 1981 film. Kurumada authored promotional illustrations depicting pivotal scenes from the film.Countless are the products of merchandise(action figures, T-shirts, toys, video games, ect) relative the works of Kurumada, sold all over the worlds with great success. His fans are usually referred to as "Masamists".[4]
His manga works listed chronologically and their duration:[5]
| Publication date | Title | Magazine | Volumes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1974 – 1975 | Sukeban Arashi (スケ番あらし, lit. Delinquent Storm) | Weekly Shōnen Jump | 2 | |
| 1977 – 1981 | Ring ni Kakero (リングにかけろ, lit. Put It All in the Ring) | Weekly Shōnen Jump | 25 | |
| 1979 – 1983 | Jitsuroku! Shinwakai (実録！神輪会, lit. Record It | The Gathering of the Gods) | Monthly Shōnen Jump | 1 |
| 1982 – 1983 | Fūma no Kojirō (風魔の小次郎, lit. Kojirō of the Fūma Clan) | Weekly Shōnen Jump | 10 | |
| 1982 – 1988 | Raimei no Zaji (雷鳴のザジ, lit. Lightning Zaji) | Fresh Jump | 1 | |
| 1984 – 2023 | Otoko Zaka (男坂, lit. Men's Hill) | Weekly Shōnen Jump → Shōnen Jump+ | 11 | |
| 1986 – 1990 | Saint Seiya (聖闘士星矢) | Weekly Shōnen Jump → V Jump | 28 | |
| 1991 | Blue Myth (青い鳥の神話, Aoi Tori no Shinwa) | Shōnen Jump Specials | 1 | |
| 1992 | Silent Knight Shō (サイレントナイト翔) | Weekly Shōnen Jump | 2 | |
| 1993 – 1994 | Akaneiro no Kaze (あかね色の風, lit. Vermillion Wind) | Super Jump | 3 | |
| 1994 – 2000 | B't X (ビート・エックス) | Shōnen Ace | 16 | |
| 1996 | Evil Crusher Maya (エビルクラッシャー魔矢) | Shōnen Gangan | 1 | |
| 2000 – 2008 | Ring ni Kakero 2 (リングにかけろ2, lit. Put It All in the Ring 2) | Super Jump | 26 | |
| 2006 – 2024 | (聖闘士星矢 ネクストディメンション 冥王神話) | Weekly Shōnen Champion | 16 | |
| 2015 | Indigo Period[6] (藍の時代, Ai no Jidai) | Weekly Shōnen Champion | 1 | |
| 2019 | Fūma no Kojirō: Jo no Maki (風魔の小次郎 序の巻, lit. Kojirō of the Fūma Clan: Prelude to a Tale) | Champion Red | 1 | |
Out of all of them, Saint Seiya is his most famous work in the western world but not in Japan, its popularity there is surpassed by that of Ring ni Kakero (1 and 2), which is the longest of Kurumada's works, at 51 collected volumes. Saint Seiya, is collected in 28 volumes to date, and has been resumed by Kurumada with Saint Seiya Next Dimension, the continuation to his original manga, ending the hiatus the work remained in since 1991, and to date adds thirteen more volumes to the original Saint Seiya manga, for a total or 41 volumes. The third longest is B't X, collected in 16. As stated before, Anime adaptations have been made for Saint Seiya, Fūma no Kojirō, B't X, and Ring ni Kakero, all closely follow his source manga works.
Saint Seiya videogames have been released for old consoles such as Famicom/NES, Game Boy and more recently various video games for PlayStation 2(2006-2008) and for PlayStation 3(2011), and a Saint Seiya Omega game for PSP was released in December 2012, and released in 2013 for PlayStation 3 and released in 2015 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 and PC. Recently, Ring ni Kakero has also been the theme for Pachinko game machines, as well as Saint Seiya, on which a recently released pachinko machine is based.
Saint Seiya Myth Cloth is a successful line of figures that started in 2003 and is still in production based on the many characters of the original Saint Seiya by Kurumada.
Currently, Kurumada working on Saint Seiya Next Dimension (a prequel and continuation to his classic manga series in which Hades recalls his fight with the previous Pegasus Saint in the 18th century). It was revealed by Kurumada and Akita Shōten that Saint Seiya Next Dimension holds a canonical status in the universe of Saint Seiya, and it is also its legitimate continuation.[9] He recently finished Ring ni Kakero 2, in 2009, after a successful run of 9 years. A live-action series of Fūma no Kojirō was released on Japanese TV. He recently started working on a new manga series Raimei-ni Kike.
He also has authorized two manga authors to write and draw sidestories for his manga Saint Seiya, specifically Saint Seiya Episode G, written and drawn by Megumu Okada, and Saint Seiya Lost Canvas, written and drawn by Shiori Teshirogi. Since these two works are not authored by Kurumada, but only authorized and supervised by him, the events depicted in them and the characters created for them are still considered non-canonical, unlike Next Dimension which holds an official canonical status.[10]
Kurumada had most of his works published by Shueisha, in the prestigious Shūkan Shōnen Jump manga magazine. He began publishing his works with Kadokawa Shoten, in their magazine Gekkan Shōnen Ace. In 1995 he resumed his relations with Shueisha and began publishing with them again, and his latest works and the current ones have been published by that company to date, excluding Saint Seiya Lost Canvas, published by Akita Shoten in the Weekly Shōnen Champion manga magazine, Saint Seiya Next Dimension, published in the Shōnen Ace manga magazine and Raimei-ni Kike, published by Akita Shoten in the Champion Red manga magazine.
In 2012, Kurumada revealed the upcoming anime television series, Saint Seiya Omega. Described as an anime original story, separate from Kurumada's canon, the series will take place 25 years after the events in Kurumada's Saint Seiya manga. The series began airing in April that year, and has been renewed for a second season that started in April 2013.[11]
In 2014 Masami Kurumada was the executive producer of a CGI remake of the Sanctuary chapter called .
In 2016, marking 30 years since the original release of the Saint Seiya manga, two commemorative exhibitions were held in Tokyo and Hong Kong in which numerous commemorative merchandising products related to Saint Seiya were also sold.[12]
For the 2017 season, Masami Kurumada has designed and collaborated on the Japanese baseball team shirt 広島東洋カープ "Hiroshima Toyo carp" [13]
In 2019, a new animated adaptation of Kurumada's original Saint Seiya manga, is started to be created by Toei Animation and Netflix, is published worldwide on the same platform. The series is made in CGI.[14]
A live action film based on the original Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada has been announced. However, the release date have not been revealed.[15]
Chinese Tencent has announced that it will produce live-action series TV of Saint Seiya by Masami Kurumada,[16] the release date it has not been made known.
June 2019 in Taiwan there was an exhibition on the works of the master Masami Kurumada, with very many drawings drawn from his works and also various armor taken from his Saint Seiya manga, all reconstructed in natural scale on a 1: 1 scale.[17]
Masami Kurumada wrote the lyrics to many of the songs used in the anime adaptations of his manga series. A CD compiling the songs was released in December 2005 with an extra song to Otoko Zaka, the CD is called Kurumada: The Complete Works.
The following songs are included:
After the CD was released Kurumada wrote the lyrics to the intro and ending song of the credits sequence of the 'Inferno' stage of the Hades arc of the Saint Seiya anime adaptation (Episodes 128 to 145).
Also, he wrote the lyrics to the ending theme of the second season of the Ring ni Kakero 1 anime adaptation, in 2006:
For the final episodes that completed the adaptation of the Hades arc of his Saint Seiya manga to anime, a new song for the credits roll was composed with Kurumada authoring the lyrics. The episodes aired in mid 2008.
Also, Kurumada had a short role as a voice actor in the anime adaptation of his manga Ring ni Kakero. He appeared in the first episode, as himself and as the Jitsuroku! Shinwakai protagonist, who shares his name, and he provided his voice to both.
Continuing his contributions as lyricist, Kurumada wrote the lyrics to the ending theme of the first and second season of the Saint Seiya: The Lost Canvas anime:
Additionally, the release of a new CD containing the rest of songs with lyrics authored by Kurumada for the anime adaptations of his works Saint Seiya and Ring ni Kakero, is set for 2013. The compilation is titled "Kurumada: The Complete Works 2"[18] and includes some previously released material. The songs included in the CD: