Yokoyama Mitsuteru

[Aaron Gerow]

The news agencies conveyed the sad news that Yokoyama Mitsuteru, one of 
the longest lasting successful manga artists, died as a result of a 
fire at his home. He was 69. Yokohama was a big fan of Tezuka Osamu and 
after working for a while in a film company, he debuted as a manga 
artist in 1955. He rose to fame with the robot manga, Tetsujin 28-go, 
which later became one of the first manga to be animated on TV (it was 
released abroad as Gigantor). He also had a liking for historical 
works, and produced a number of ninja manga, particularly Akakage/Red 
Shadow, which later became a successful live-action TV show and even a 
movie in 2001. His 60-volume Sankokushi (Story of Three Kingdoms) was 
the most monumental of a number of works adapting famous Chinese tales 
and biographies of Japanese samurai into manga. A number of his manga 
have been produced as films, especially Mahotsukai Sari.

The 52 episodes of Gigantor are now available on DVD in the US. I had 
actually shown a bit of it in class yesterday before I heard the news.

Aaron Gerow
KineJapan owner

Assistant Professor
Film Studies Program/East Asian Languages and Literatures
Yale University

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