Introducing… Otomo Katsuhiro

When Katsuhiro Otomo (大友克洋, Ōtomo Katsuhiro?, born April 14, 1954) wrote his sprawling manga Akira, set in a dystopian future in which the military secretly develops the psychic abilities of gifted youngsters, he had no inkling that his opus would go on to break down boundaries and help introduce anime to western audiences. A manga that is relatively unknown in mainstream Japan has taken Otomo’s name and reputation around the world, but what else has he been up to?

Although the average eikaiwa student in Japan hasn’t heard of Katsuhiro Otomo, the majority of western anime fans who got into manga in the late 80s and early 90s will have been introduced to Otomo’s classic Akira. In the early days when the Of Rice and Zen team would check our local video store for a new anime release, the Japanimation section consisted of an art-house anime called The Sensualist and Akira. The wait for the release of the early Manga Video releases such as Guyver and The Wind of Amnesia was a long and lonely one. This gave us plenty of time to pore over Akira’s finer details.

It had a breadth of vision that was unmatched in mainstream western animation. It was adult themed and featured death, destruction and mutilation, the likes of which most western youngsters would never have witnessed in animation before. The moment you see a realistically rendered future cop get half his face shot off by a freedom fighter is a personal paradigm shift.

The grittiness of Akira may not have been entirely incidental if one believes the story that Otomo-san grew up in a turbulent Japan of the 1960s when rioting and protests by students and workers against the government would help to forge the miraculous Japan of the 1980s bubble era comeback.

Having helped create the default vision of the future and carry Japan-cool worldwide, Otomo would go on to helm such lauded releases as the visually and technically stunning Steamboy. The movie is an interesting mix of historical drama and steampunk sci-fi and featured some groundbreaking CGI-assisted animation and a scale that threatened to dwarf the already epic Akira.

After this Otomo went on to create a live action version of Mushishi. The original animated series is a stunning and startlingly original saga about the mystical investigations of a man who attracts organisms that exist all around us. Mysteriously amorphous, they are half plant, half animal, sometimes extra dimensional, sometimes visible. The dazzling collection of mushi and the nightmarish ways in which they interact with the infected humans make for a truly unforgettable mythos. Mushishi rates highly on lists of Japan’s favourite anime of all time, but has been unfortunately maligned in the west.

Bringing Mushishi to life is a terrifying task given the scale of the vision and the complexity of the mushishi lore. Although Otomo is not known primarily as a live movie director it was brave of him to undertake the adaptation and a sign of the respect that he has earned as a Japanese auteur that he was allowed to do so.

Not content to rest on his laurels just yet, Otomo decided to push the envelope further by lending his character design skills, and more importantly his name, to a Nissin Cup Noodle publicity stunt called The Freedom Project. Representing what is no doubt the future sponsorship method of visual entertainment, the show was a well-funded and highly publicised series that was, from conception, expressly made to feature and publicise Nissin’s instant noodle snack.

The show features a character, not unlike Akira’s Kaneda, with a pure heart and a desire to escape his dystopian environment with his love of high-tech motors and an uncrushable will. Escaping from the totalitarian grip of the moon’s government he discovers new possiblities and undreamt of experiences on Earth. A love of rebellious American cinema of his youth, like Five Easy Pieces and Easy Rider would go on to not only inform Otomo’s conception of America as the land of the freedom fighter, but also help to formulate the quintessentially anti-authority Otomo protagonist and his futuristic two wheeled mayhem machine.

The Freedom Project was released on highly overpriced DVDs with a special short feature about the origins of space travel, made to inform and inspire the audience to share the show’s sense of adventure and discovery in a jerry-rigged world. Whatever you think of the commodifying effects of the late capitalist system on art, one must be at least impressed with the technical feat that allowed for the most realistic blend of 2D cell animation and 3D polygons to date. The forthcoming Blu-ray release will feature a previously unseen episode and is being eagerly awaited by Japanophiles.

Otomo-san has not only had a huge effect on both Japanese and worldwide visual culture, but he also continues to push himself and his art with every step he takes. We look forward to seeing the what kind of worlds he can open up for us all next.

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