Leiji Matsumoto, better known by his pen name Akira Matsumoto, was a well-known Japanese manga and animation creator. His studio has confirmed his passing at the age of 85.
He passed away from severe heart failure on February 13th, according to a statement from Studio Leijisha.
Galaxy Express 999, Queen Emeraldas, and Space Battleship Yamato are only a few of the famous science fiction epics of Matsumoto.
A lot of the time, his stories had poignant messages against war.
In a statement, Matsumoto’s daughter Makiko Matsumoto, the head of Studio Leijisha, claimed “leave for a journey to the sea of stars. I believe he had a contented life and planned to keep creating manga.”
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Matsumoto, who was born in 1938 in the Fukuoka Prefecture city of Kurume in the southwest, was just 15 years old when his first manga book, Mitsubachi no Boken (Honey Bee’s Adventures), was released.
He moved to Tokyo after graduating from high school to pursue his aspiration of becoming a successful artist.
In 1961, he wed the well-known manga artist Miyako Maki, who was one of the first female manga artists in Japan. He changed his name to Leiji Matsumoto as a result of their joint work on numerous projects.
Ten years after publishing Otoko Oidon, a book series on the lives of a young, impoverished man preparing for university exams, he received his big break. The Kodansha Publication Prize for Children’s Manga was given to it in recognition of its tremendous popularity.
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Some of his manga comics have been adapted into anime television programmes, such as the sci-fi epic Space Pirate Captain Harlock, which chronicles the exploits of an outcast turned space pirate.
Although Matsumoto was only seven when World War Two ended, more than 150 of his manga stories featured the sadness of war. Years later, he said his own father, an elite army pilot, had told him that war should never be waged because it “destroys your future,” and that he had been greatly influenced by him.
The world has lost a “absolute giant,” according to Zack Davisson, a Californian author who translated a significant portion of Matsumoto’s writing.
Moreover, he said, Matsumoto’s portrayal of emotionally defenceless teenagers and young men demonstrated that having feelings was acceptable: “A gut-punch was delivered by Star Blazers and Galaxy Express. Individuals… passed away. Crying was heard. They… fell in love.”
“His creations were vast and had a profound melancholy that was unmatched. All of this was encapsulated in striking, both mythological and futuristic, graphics “Declared Mr. Davisson.
Daft Punk, a French musical group, was a fan of Matsumoto’s work and asked him to make many animated music videos for them, most notably for the song One More Time, which was published in 2000.
Matsumoto was hailed as one of the members’ boyhood heroes by Thomas Bangalter and Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo.
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The movie Interstella 5555, which tells the tale of an animated group of aliens, was also produced by the two of them. It was deemed to be “a cult hit before it ever came out” by the Japanese journal Pen Online.
The port city of Tsuruga in Japan was the location of several bronze statues that were built in 1999, each of which featured a scene or character from Galaxy Express 999 and Space Battleship Yamato.
In addition to receiving the Order of the Rising Sun and other illustrious cultural and artistic awards from Japan, Matsumoto was also given the Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters by the French government.
Due to his works’ popularity, they have been adapted and spun out for a very long time, inspiring generations of manga and anime enthusiasts.
