On the road to meet Izumi MATSUMOTO!
The famous manga Kimagure Orange Road celebrates its 30th birthday! For this special occasion, Japan Expo had the chance to welcome its creator, Izumi MATSUMOTO. He comes back on his different works during a very interesting conference on the Japan Expo stage.
It is with a Frenchy “Bonjour” that Izumi MATSUMOTO timidly salutes the public. The famous mangaka didn’t come empty-handed and it is through illustrations and videos that he introduces himself and his works.
Born in 1958 in Toyama, it is in 1984 that he debuts his career by winning the Fresh Jump Award discerned by the Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. His most famous work is still Kimagure Orange Road, a manga which will be adapted into movies, anime and even novels. Mix between innocent and audacious love, the story casts Madoka, Kyosuke and Hikaru, all three trapped in a love triangle.
Layer brush, ink, dots or Photoshop, MATSUMOTO experiences all kind of techniques! Naturally curious, he is one of the first to use computer to colorize his illustrations, but also a pioneer of the numerical comic. Therefore he realizes the magazine called Comic On in 1987, a particular format which at that time was functioning on Windows 95 and works just as a DVD.
Panic in Sento stages the character of Kimagure Orange Road: Madoka and Ryusuke. They play tennis and sweat a lot, a good pretext to go to the sento, also known as public baths… some spectators start to blush and the mangaka can’t help from giving a faint smile.
Izumi MATSUMOTO tells us loving romantic comedies as much as sci-fi series, and the proof is that he worked on Black Moon and EE, two different stories but positioned in steampunk and cyberpunk universes.
The mangaka is never in lack of imagination and in Bakumatsu Rashamen Joski, it is in the Tokugawa era that he brings us. Both action and romance story, it is the Madoka from 150 years ago that he invites us to meet and once again in a sento scene, but MATSUMOTO already warned us: “I really do like sento, there’s always many things happening there…”
In 1981, he published Graffiti, an anthology containing several short stories and from 1988 to 1992, his manga Sesame Street is released in the Super Jump magazine.
After having introduced countless artworks to the spectators, Izumi MATSUMOTO tackles a sensitive and intimate subject, his fight against the sickness. Subject to repetitive blackouts, to unbearable headaches and to insomnia, it is in a downward spiral that the mangaka finds himself trapped in 1999. The many doctors that he consulted at that time weren’t able to put a name to his suffering and advised him to see a psychiatric. These same doctors prescribe him different medicines making his symptoms even more violent… His state doesn’t get better and he takes the decision to leave the hospital to come back home.
It is finally after long researches on Internet that he finds the cause of his sufferings: the cerebrospinal fluid leak, a rare symptom for which he will eventually find a remedy in a specialized clinic.
This story leaves its mark on him and it is on paper that he decides to share it through an autobiographic work: Middle of the journey. It is under the features of Yayoi, a young girl who, just like him, draws manga and suffers from strange symptoms that his brother Tsukasa, despite of being a doctor, is unable to diagnostic. Through this artwork, it is a testimony that the mangaka wishes to leave to his readers, a message in a bottle which, he hopes, will be found by people most in need: “If you are surrounded by people suffering from the same symptoms, tell them about this sickness.”
It is now time for the live-drawing. Very meticulous, Izumi MATSUMOTO doesn’t cease to touch up the beautiful portrait of Madoka. A bit audacious, the latter undeniably wears the very particular signature of the mangaka.
No comment