My generation was a special generation. I was born in 1960 and in my childhood we were all big manga consumers that was the culture. We were brought up in manga. Manga evolved around what was being made to cater to kids. All children at that time read ridiculously thick manga books every week.
I was an avid anime watcher until I was about 10, when I moved to manga. I think I am influenced by Osamu Tezuka's and Walt Disney's works which I watched during that time, such as Tetsuwan Atom and 101 Dalmatians.
I watched a lot of animes, especially 'Dragon Ball Z,' which was my bible from the time I was 7 till I was 15.
The fact that Gene Simmon's son is a manga-ka disturbs me more than whether he's really copying or not.
I do enjoy manga but would not consider myself a 'super-fan,' only really connecting with certain works such as 'Lone Wolf and Cub,' or 'Tekkon Kinkreet,' the more breakthrough works, and 'Akira,' to me, is the daddy of them all.
I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture.
As a child, because manga was always around and I was reading it, I naturally thought, 'Hey, I'd like to draw manga - I'd like to be a manga author!'
I've been immersed in manga since I was a kid. I grew up with this culture. So I started to think about how to compare manga to contemporary art.
Simply put, I'm glad that manga as an expressive form is expanding.
In Japan there is a lot of manga, but around manga there are video games, manga on cellphones, manga in card games... so people not only enjoy manga but also the products around it.
I admire the abstract expressionists and pop artists so right now I'm referencing American '60s art and at the same time referencing Japanese manga culture.
My house is like a manga library in many ways, and it's great because I get to call it research.
