Kenji Tsuruta

Kenji Tsuruta ( Japanese 鶴 田 謙 二 , Tsuruta Kenji ; * 1961 in Kanagawa Prefecture , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist , illustrator and character designer .

Life

Before making his debut as a professional manga artist, Tsuruta dōjinshi drew and worked as an assistant for several manga artists. He finally published his first manga in 1986 with the short story Hirokute Suteki na Uchū Janai ka ( 広 く て す て き な 宇宙 じ ゃ な い か , Eng. "It's a big, wonderful universe, isn't it?"). This was awarded by the Kodansha publishing house and was also the first in a series of short stories that were later published in the anthology Spirit of Wonder . The Spirit of Wonder stories appeared in the manga magazines Morning and Afternoon until 1995 , were filmed into an anime film and an OVA and translated into several languages.

In the following years Tsuruta developed a graphically very detailed drawing style and only drew a few manga. His art books Hydrogen and Eternal were, however, to great successes and the anime series Abenobashi Mahō Shōtengai , for which he designed the character design and drew a corresponding manga series, achieved cult status among anime fans. His manga Forget-me-not , published in 2003 , which describes episodes from the everyday life of a young Japanese detective in Venice , had to be reprinted in Japan within a very short time and was also published in France and Germany, among others.

Tsuruta's works are mostly of the science fiction genre and are heavily influenced by writers such as Jules Verne and HG Wells . The manga artist Yukinobu Hoshino (including 2001 Ya Monogatari ), who is considered one of the leaders in science fiction, and Tetsuya Chiba ( Ashita no Joe ) also had a great influence on Tsuruta.

For his outstanding artistic achievement, Tsuruta received the Seiun Prize for Science Fiction Literature in both 2000 and 2001 .

He also works as an illustrator and drew, among other things, the cover for the Japanese novel edition of the Tōkyō Sōgensha publishing house by Captain Future or the issues of SF Magazine 2000, as well as illustrations for novel series such as Shinji Kajios Emanon for which he also drew the manga adaptation, Miyuki Miyabe's Brave Story or Hiroshi Mori's Sky Crawler .

Works

Manga:

• Spirit of Wonder , 1986-1995, 1 volume
• SF Meibutsu ( SF 名 物 ), 1997
• Abenobashi Mahō Shōtengai (ア ベ ノ 橋 魔法 ☆ 商店 街 ), 2002
• Forget-me-not , 2003
• Omoide Emanon ( お も い で エ マ ノ ン ), 2008, based on the novel of the same name by Shinji Kajio
• Emanon: Sasurai Emanon Episode: 1 ( EMANON さ す ら い エ マ ノ ン　Episode: 1), 2010, text by Shinji Kajio
• Bōken Erekite-shima ( 冒 険 エ レ キ テ 島 ), 2011

Artbooks:

• Tsuruta Kenji Kyōyō Gashū: Made in China ( 鶴 田 謙 二 教養 画集 MADE IN CHINA), 1997? on CD-ROM
• Suiso - Hydrogen ( 水 素－hydrogen), 1997
• Eternal , 1998
• Watermark 1999 , 1998
• Hitahita ( ひ た ひ た ), 2002
• Comet ( コ メ ッ ト , Kometto ), 2004
• Future , 2011

Web links

• Kenji Tsuruta in the Comiclopedia (English)