Tsukasa Hōjō
Tsukasa Hōjō ( Japanese 北 条 司 , Hōjō Tsukasa ; born March 5, 1959 in Kokura , Fukuoka , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist .
Life
Tsukasa Hōjō studied from 1977 at the Kyushu Sangyo University . In 1979 he sent the short story Space Angel to Shueisha- Verlag, for which he won the prestigious Tezuka Prize a short time later as runner-up in a competition , which is awarded annually to outstanding young manga artists by the manga magazine Shōnen Jump . Buichi Terasawa and Yukinobu Hoshino , among others, had previously received this award . However, he did not publish his first manga as a professional draftsman until 1980 with the short story Ore wa Otoko da! in the Shōnen Jump.
Hōjō, whose drawings influenced by Gekiga are kept realistic, achieved great success with his first longer manga, Cat's Eye . In it he tells of three sisters who run a café during the day and are thieves at night. The young women are after items from their father's former art collection. The manga, which is over 4,400 pages long and sold 18 million copies in Japan, appeared in Shōnen Jump from 1981 to 1985 and was filmed into a 73-part anime series by Tokyo Movie Shinsha from 1983 to 1985 .
Tsukasa Hōjō created a second successful series from 1985 to 1991 with City Hunter through the private detective Ryo Saeba. The over 6500-page City Hunter sold 35 million copies in Japan and received numerous animated films, but was also made into a feature film in 1993 with Jackie Chan in the lead role.
In the 1990s, Hōjō initially mainly worked on short stories and short manga series, but with Family Compo he again created a longer comic from 1996 to 2000, for the first time for his magazine for adult men. His previous works had all appeared in Shōnen magazines for boys and teenagers. Family Compo is about a young man who lives alone in an apartment because his parents are both already dead and moves in with his uncle and aunt. The situation becomes more complicated when he finds out that his uncles and aunt are transvestites and he is no longer sure whether the couple's 16-year-old daughter might be a boy too. Since 2001, Hojo is responsible for the manga magazine Comic Bunch of Angel Heart , a sequel to City Hunter .
His works have been translated into German, English, French, Italian and Chinese, among others. His mangas are particularly successful in France, while City Hunter's German publication had to be discontinued after only ten of 35 volumes due to the draftsman's change of publisher from Shueisha to Shinchosha . Haruto Umezawa and Takehiko Inoue , among others, worked as assistants for him.
Works (selection)
- Space Angel ( ス ペ ー ス ・ エ ン ジ ェ ル , Supēsu Enjeru ), 1979
- Ore wa Otoko there! ( お れ は 男 だ! ), 1980
- Cat's Eye (キ ャ ッ ツ ア イ , Kyattsu Ai ), 1981–1985
- City Hunter (シ テ ィ ー ハ ン タ ー , Shitī Hantā ), 1985–1991
- Komorebi no Moto de… ( こ も れ 陽 の 下 で… ), 1993–1994
- Rash , 1995
- Family Compo (フ ァ ミ リ ー ・ コ ン ポ , Famirī Kompo ), 1996–2000
- Angel Heart (エ ン ジ ェ ル ハ ー ト , Enjeru Hāto ), since 2001
Web links
- Official website on hojo-tsukasa.com (Japanese)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Shounen Jump Manga Circulation Numbers. on ComiPress.com, June 1, 2006.
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hōjō, Tsukasa |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 北 条 司 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese manga artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | March 5, 1959 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Kokura , Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan |