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Template:Anime and manga Template:Nihongo, known professionally as Template:Nihongo, was a Japanese manga artist. He is best known as the author of Yu-Gi-Oh!, published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1996 to 2004. The manga spawned a trading card game of the same name, which holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling trading card game of all time.
Early life
Kazuo Takahashi was born in Tokyo on October 4, 1961.[1] In his childhood, he drew artwork of manga he enjoyed such as Tiger Mask, Ultraman, Space Battleship Yamato, Mazinger Z, Devilman, and Kamen Rider.[2] He also played tennis in his youth.[3]
Disinterested in his studies,[3][4] Takahashi was shamed by his homeroom teacher as "the poop machine that knows nothing except eating, sleeping and pooping" in front of other students. Angered by the humiliation, Takahashi decided to become a manga artist.[5] In his second year of high school, he also sought to be a background animator of Tezuka Productions. He planned to drop out of school if he passed the recruitment exam, but he failed as his drawing skills were not yet up to industry standard.[6] Takahashi gave up on his goal of becoming an animator, instead becoming a designer of corporate logos and banners, which included making designs for pachislot panels.[4][7] It was at this time he started submitting his manga to publishers.[3][2]
Career
In 1981, at the age of 20,[2] Takahashi's one-shot manga Ing! Love Ball, submitted under the pen name "Template:Nihongo", won the Shogakukan New Comic Award and was published in Weekly Shōnen Sunday in the same year.[1] His serial debut was in 1986 with Gō-Q-Chōji Ikkiman, an adaptation of the TV sports anime of the same name, published in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine.[1][3] In the meantime, Takahashi explained that he experienced extreme poverty as his home lacked electricity and he made thirty-six times of credit card installments in the magazine.[8] George Morikawa, author of Hajime no Ippo, described his living place from that time as "dilapidated Showa era wooden apartment that people immediately thought of".[7] Because his early works were unprofitable, Takahashi switched his direction to Shueisha.[7] In 1990, his one-shot Tokiō no Taka was published in Weekly Shōnen Jump.[9] Another manga, Tennenshoku Danji Buray, was published in the magazine from 1991 to 1992.[3][10]
In 1996, Takahashi launched Yu-Gi-Oh! under the pen name "Kazuki Takahashi" in Weekly Shōnen Jump, where it was serialized until 2004.[11] The series became a huge success and has sold more than 40 million copies. It has also received several media adaptations, notably an anime television series and a trading card game developed by Konami,[11] which holds the Guinness World Record for the best-selling trading card game in history, with more than 25.1 billion cards sold as of 2011.[12] Following the end of the original manga's serialization, Takahashi would supervise adaptions made by his assistants, such as Yu-Gi-Oh! R by Akira Itō, Yu-Gi-Oh! GX by Naoyuki Kageyama and Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's by Masashi Sato.[7][9] He was also involved in the animation production of Yu-Gi-Oh! Bonds Beyond Time and Yu-Gi-Oh! The Dark Side of Dimensions.[2][7]
In 2013, his one-shot manga Drump was released in Weekly Shōnen Jump.[13] In 2015, Takahashi received the Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International for his outstanding contributions to comics.[14] In 2018, Takahashi published the limited series The Comiq in Weekly Shōnen Jump.[15] Takahashi also wrote a two-part manga, titled Secret Reverse, for the Marvel × Shōnen Jump+ Super Collaboration, which was released on Shōnen Jump+ in September 2019.[16]
Style
Takahashi's early art style was comical Template:Transl and influenced by traditional anime. Some illustrators such as Drew Struzan, Alphonse Mucha, and Norman Rockwell had a tremendous impact on Takahashi's later art style. His choices of traditional art tools were g-pen, watercolors and Copic markers, whereas Adobe Photoshop and Painter were the art programs he used during post manga serialization.[3][2][4]
Personal life
Takahashi enjoyed playing games such as shogi, mahjong, card games, and tabletop role-playing games.[3][17] In an interview with Shonen Jump, Takahashi stated that his favorite manga from other authors included Akira by Katsuhiro Otomo, JoJo's Bizarre Adventure by Hirohiko Araki, and Dragon Ball by Akira Toriyama.[18] He also enjoyed reading American comics[3] and stated that Hellboy was his favorite American comic book character.[19] His pet dog, a shiba inu named Template:Nihongo, was the basis for the Yu-Gi-Oh! Trading Card Game monster card Template:Nihongo; the card's artwork was personally drawn by Takahashi.[20][21] Takahashi also enjoyed sea diving and visited Okinawa seaside each July.[22][23]
Takahashi occasionally expressed his political views in his art, such as when he posted a drawing on Instagram of Yu-Gi-Oh! characters criticizing Shinzo Abe's government and asking his followers to "vote for justice" in the 2019 House of Councillors election. He later apologized.[24]
Death
On July 6, 2022, Takahashi was found dead in the water Template:Convert off the shore of Nago, Okinawa, by Japan Coast Guard officers following a civilian report from a passing boat.[25] He was found wearing snorkeling gear, and his cause of death was determined to be drowning.[26][27]
It was subsequently reported, first in the American military newspaper Stars and Stripes on October 11, that Takahashi had died in the afternoon of July 4 while assisting in the rescue of three others who were caught in a rip current.[28][29]
Works
As Hajime Miyabi
- Template:Nihongo (1981; one-shot, published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday)
- Template:Nihongo (1982; one-shot, published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday)
- Template:Nihongo (1982; one-shot, published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday)
- Template:Nihongo (1982; one-shot, published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday)
- Template:Nihongo (1983; one-shot, published in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday)
As Kazuo Takahashi
- Template:Nihongo (1986; serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine)
- Template:Nihongo (1990; one-shot, published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
- Template:Nihongo (1991; one-shot, published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
- Template:Nihongo (1991–1992; serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
As Kazuki Takahashi
- Template:Nihongo (1996–2004; serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
- Drump (2013; one-shot, published in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
- The Comiq (2018; serialized in Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump)
- Secret Reverse (2019; released on Shueisha's Shōnen Jump+)
Others
- Button (2010; released on Studio Dice official website)
- 3 episodes of anime shorts made by Takahashi.
See also
- George Morikawa, Takahashi's mahjong companion and also a manga artist of Hajime no Ippo.
- Yasuichi Oshima, the manga artist that Takahashi worked with as a manga assistant.
References
External links
Template:Yu-Gi-Oh! Template:Inkpot Award 2010s Template:Authority control
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Template:Cite web
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- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 3.6 3.7 Template:Cite magazine
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 US Shonen Jump Magazine (February 2003). Archived in Taretare 和希の素 語録.[1] Template:Webarchive
- ↑ Yu-Gi-Oh! tankobon vol. 28
- ↑ Original from Studio Dice blog, now deactivated. Template:Cite tweet
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Template:Cite tweet
- ↑ Shonen Magazine, year 1986, vol. 19. Archived in Taretare 和希の素 語録.[2] Template:Webarchive
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 Template:Cite web
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- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Template:Cite web
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