Masami Kurumada

Masami Kurumada (車田 正美) is a Japanese manga artist and writer, known for specializing in fighting manga featuring bishōnen and magical boys.

He is the founder of the manga studio Kurumada Productions or Kurumadapro for short.

He achieved fame as the creator of popular manga, such as Ring ni Kakero, Fūma no Kojirō, Saint Seiya and B't X.

The male characters in his works often display very masculine qualities and traits, and display courage through sacrifice, selflessness and true heroism.

He has won the Best Success award with Saint Seiya and the Best Inspiration award with Ring ni Kakero.

Kurumada's first work was Otoko Raku, which earned him an award in a manga contest for aspiring manga artist, and became assistant to professional manga artists.

His drawing style is very classic, reminiscent from the manga/anime aesthetics more predominant in the 1960s and 1970s, albeit a constant flaw in his art is an inconsistent trace and proportion unbalance.

He often draws his characters as if seen from a low perspective.

His drawings can sometimes seem rough, but the improvement in his artistic technique is evident when comparing older works to more recent ones.

His coloring style is almost exclusively realistic, unlike the vast majority of manga artists, who often resort to the use of non-natural colors for the hair or eyes of their characters, although with the publication of Saint Seiya Next Dimension volumes totally in color, the addition of new characters with non-natural hair colors occurs often.

Certain graphics elements characteristic of his style can be found all over his works, mostly during fight sequences, having become widely known.

Fans have created terms to refer to them such as Kurumada-ochi (車田落ち), meaning "Kurumada Fall", which designates the typical head-first falling characters, and Kurumada-futtobi (車田吹っ飛び), meaning "Kurumada Launch", which refers to characters that are projected high into the air by opponents, to name a few.

Recurrent themes in his works are friendship, courage, redemption and sacrifice.

Masculine virtue and qualities, honesty and honor are also traits often found in his characters.

Female characters in his works mostly play a much lesser role, but several ones with key roles can also be found, such as Rei Kojinyama (Sukeban Arashi), Kiku Takane (Ring ni Kakero) and Saori Kido (Saint Seiya).

Kurumada has stated in interviews that he obtains some creative influence from yesterday's authors considered masters of the manga medium today, such as Hiroshi Motomiya, Sanpei Shirato and Mitsuteru Yokoyama.

He specially considers that Motomiya's works had a very strong impact and influence on him.

Kurumada also draws inspiration from universal knowledge and folklore, such as Greek mythology, Japanese and Chinese mythology, Buddhist and Hinduist doctrine, Trascendental philosophies, and classic works of literature, such as Dante Alighieri's The Divine Comedy, and Outlaws of the Marsh, to name a few.

His interest in boxing, wrestling and martial arts is well known, and he maintains close relations with renowned personalities of those circles.

As he states in his website, he likes to drink with friends and to practice photography while jogging.

Among his works that have been cancelled due to failing to attract fans: Otoko Zaka, Silent Knight Shō and Aoi Tori no Shinwa.

His works that suffered popularity decrease: B't X (which he successfully concluded without facing cancellation), and Saint Seiya.

Some time later, he debuted as a professional manga artist in 1974 with his manga Sukeban Arashi, and achieved his first hit three years later when he started writing and drawing Ring ni Kakero, which brought him recognition as a popular manga author, and lasted five years, and he considers it his favorite creation.

A practicer of the martial arts in his younger days, the influence this has exerted on his various works is worthy of mention.

Also, in the same manner as many manga artists today, Kurumada employs the revered Osamu Tezuka's Star System manga technique, which is essentially resorting to the use of a stable cast of characters in his various works (characters keep the same appearance and personality, but sometimes the author gives them new names and different roles than in previous works).

Because of this, the main characters of his works most of the time bear a resemblance to Takane Ryūji, the protagonist of Ring ni Kakero.

The main characters of his subsequent works have almost the same appearance and personality of Ryūji, specifically Jingi Kikukawa (Otoko Zaka), Kojirō (Fūma no Kojirō), Seiya (Saint Seiya), Teppei Takamiya (B't X), Shō (Silent Knight Shō), Aoi Tendō (Aoi Tori no Shinwa), Rindō Kenzaki (Ring ni Kakero 2), among others.

Besides Kurumada, other renowned manga artists that resort to the master Tezuka's technique include legendary authors Leiji Matsumoto, Monkey Punch and Shōtarō Ishinomori or Clamp.

Clamp was heavily influenced by Kurumada's works, and they began their career as manga authors creating doujinshi based on Kurumada's characters.

It is also known that anime adaptations aren't much to his liking, he prefers manga.

He agreed that his works Fūma no Kojirō, Saint Seiya, Ring ni Kakero and B't X were adapted to anime, to follow the long-time tradition of popular manga having an animated adaptation.

The anime adaptation of Saint Seiya experienced a popularity decrease during the anime-only Asgard arc, while the popularity of the original manga was still strong; the anime back in 1989, was in pre-production of the episodes that would adapt the Hades arc of the manga.

In Saint Seiya's case, Kurumada was forced by Shueisha, his publisher, to finish the manga after the Hades Arc, in 1991.

Because of low popularity of the anime adaptation, the project was suspended and remained so until 2003, when it was resumed and the Hades arc of the manga finally was adapted to animation.

The original Ring ni Kakero was adapted to anime, 27 years after its manga debut, and as mentioned before, the Saint Seiya anime adaptation was resumed in 2003 and an attempt to start the Zeus Chapter was made with the release of the Saint Seiya Tenkai-Hen Josō ~Overture~ movie in 2004, which was planned to continue the story with the subsequent release of OVAs, but due to discrepancies between Kurumada and Toei Animation, the project failed and was abandoned.

In 2004, Kurumada celebrated 30 years as a professional manga artist, and that same year two of his older and best known works experienced a resurfacing.

He put his manga in hiatus after he finished the mentioned arc, and resumed it in 2006 with Saint Seiya Next Dimension.

The episodes that adapted the two final volumes of the manga were aired in between May and August 2008, finally leaving Kurumada's manga completely adapted to anime.

Kurumada still plans to publish the "Zeus Chapter", written and drawn by him, in manga form in the near future, by 2012, a considerable amount of elements from it have already been revealed by Kurumada in Saint Seiya Next Dimension and he is set to continue doing so in the next instalments of that work in the japanese summer in 2013.

Kurumada's works have had influence on manga authors and related media.