‘AKIRA’ Creator Is Tagging Back Into Manga. *Cue Tetsuoooooo*

I don’t read manga, but the anime adaptation of Akira  is more than responsible for help shaping the warped, bent, broken psyche that I own these days.  Katsuhiro Otomo is the creator of the long-as-fuck saga, and he hasn’t written any long-form manga since then.

Until now. Cue dramatic horns!

Comics Alliance:

The great mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo is recognized around the world for his enormous influence on comic books and anime, a legacy cemented in his seminal work, AKIRA — a 2,000-page opus that remains Otomo’s only long-form manga. That is set to change, however, when Otomo begins work on what will be his first extended serial in more than 20 years. The as-yet-untitled project will be in the shonen arena (manga targeted at the young male market) and set in Japan’s historic Meiji period between the late 1860s and 1912.

The news comes courtesy of Japanese art magazine Geijutsu Shincho, which also features “DJ Teck no Morning Attack,” a new eight-page color manga by Otomo and his first since 2006’s “Kouen.” Otomo also told the magazine that he’s produced a new anime short called “Hi-no-Youjin” or “Combustible,” which will screen at the Annecy festival in France this June.

Little is known about Otomo’s new serial, just that it will be the author’s first exercise in shonen and be set during Japan’s Meiji period, around the mid 1800s to July 1912, when the nation transformed from an isolated feudal state into the Empire of Japan. Translation of the original interview is subject to inaccuracies, but it seems Otomo played coy with the release date and other details, saying that his new work will be serialized in “a certain shonen magazine.”

Anyone read manga? Totally excited for this? Even though I’ve only interacted with the good man on a tertiary level, I’m excited by his reentry into the field.