was a Japanese

manga artist A manga artist, also known as a mangaka (), is a Cartoonist, comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist before entering the indus ...

famous for his surreal, nonsense gag manga.

Career

After initially studying painting, Sugiura became an assistant to the manga artist Suihō Tagawa. He soon began drawing his own manga in 1933 and came to fame after

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

with a series of comedic manga for children based on stories like those of Sasuke Sarutobi, Jiraiya, and ''

Journey to the West ''Journey to the West'' () is a Chinese novel published in the 16th century during the Ming dynasty and attributed to Wu Cheng'en. It is regarded as one of the Classic Chinese Novels, great Chinese novels, and has been described as arguably the ...

''. Sugiura closely followed popular culture and thus his manga were also influenced by such contemporary fads as

Godzilla is a fictional monster, or ''kaiju'', that debuted in the eponymous 1954 film, directed and co-written by Ishirō Honda. The character has since become an international pop culture icon, appearing in various media: 33 Japanese films p ...

pro wrestling Professional wrestling, often shortened to either pro wrestling or wrestling,The term "wrestling" is most often widely used to specifically refer to modern scripted professional wrestling, though it is also used to refer to real-life wrest ...

, and American

science fiction films Science fiction (or sci-fi) is a film genre that uses speculative, fictional science-based depictions of phenomena that are not fully accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial lifeforms, spacecraft, robots, cyborgs, mutants, i ...

. The philosophy of his manga "is of ''yukai'', pleasure and amusement, pursuing the path as far from seriousness as possible. . . . The praxis of ''yukai'' is essentially the body in free motion, and Sugiura’s characters are defined by an excess of movement." The result was a visual style that was often surreal and absurd. A craftsman, Sugiura could not keep up with the mass production of manga that the shift to weekly magazines brought at the end of the 1950s, and his subsequent manga became more and more surreal, if not avant-garde, as they came to be directed at an older audience. He enjoyed a second boom in popularity from the 1970s on.

Influence

Sugiura has influenced many artists in a variety of fields, including the gag manga artist

Fujio Akatsuka was a Japanese manga artist. Known as the Master of Gag Manga, he created many popular manga such as ''Osomatsu-kun'', ''Himitsu no Akko-chan'', and ''Tensai Bakabon''. Biography He was born in Rehe Province, Rehe, Manchuria, the son of a Ke ...

. Enthusiastic fans include such figures as the novelist

Yasutaka Tsutsui is a Japanese novelist, science fiction author, and actor. His ''Yumenokizaka bunkiten'' won the Tanizaki Prize in 1987. He has also won the 1981 Izumi Kyoka award, the 1989 Kawabata Yasunari award, and the 1992 Nihon SF Taisho Award. Writin ...

and the musician

Haruomi Hosono , sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop f ...

. He is cited as the inspiration for the ''tanuki'' in

Isao Takahata was a Japanese director, screenwriter and producer. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he earned international critical acclaim for his work as a director of Japanese animated feature films. Born in Ujiyamada, Mie Prefecture, Takahata joined Toei ...

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

film '' Pom Poko'' and

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, filmmaker, and manga artist. He co-founded Studio Ghibli and serves as honorary chairman. Throughout his career, Miyazaki has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Anime, Japanese ani ...

made a

television commercial A television advertisement (also called a commercial, spot, break, advert, or ad) is a span of television programming produced and paid for by an organization. It conveys a message promoting, and aiming to market, a product, service or idea. ...

inspired by his work.

Select single works

*Appuru Jamu-kun (アップルジャム君) *Bōken Ben-chan (冒険ベンちゃん) *Doron Chibimaru (ドロンちび丸) *Enban Z (円盤Z) *Gojira (ゴジラ) *Misutā Robotto (ミスターロボット) 1959The Ganzfeld - Issue 4 Dan Nadel, Jessi Rymill - 2005 "In the 1950s, his manga were serialized in boys' monthly magazines and published in original manga books; The Last of ... the Mohicans and Monkey King Goes West were humorous manga loosely based on American and Chinese classics, while Sarutobi, the Ninja Boy and Mister Robot reflected Sugiura's yearning for terrae incognitae and the world of fantasy." *Sarutobi Sasuke (猿飛佐助) *Shōnen Jiraiya (少年児雷也) *Shōnen saiyūki (少年西遊記) *''Sugiura Shigeru: Jiden to kaisō'' (杉浦茂ー自伝と回想). Chikuma Shobō, 2002. (autobiography)

Collected works

*''Sugiura Shigeru kessaku senshū'' 『杉浦茂傑作選集怪星ガイガー・八百八狸』. Seirin Kōgeisha, 2006. *''Sugiura Shigeru mangakan''『杉浦茂マンガ館』, 5 vols. Chikuma Shobō, 1993–6. , , , , *''Sugiura Shigeru no chotto tarinai meisaku gekijō''『杉浦茂のちょっとタリない名作劇場』. Chikuma Shobō, 1993.

Notes

External links

Comic Park
First pages of Sugiura reprints available online (in Japanese).

Seigō Matsuoka review of Sugiura manga reprint (in Japanese).
Sugiura Shigeru 101-nen matsuri

Kyoto International Manga Museum The Kyoto International Manga Museum (京都国際マンガミュージアム, Kyōto Kokusai Manga Myūjiamu) is located in Nakagyō-ku, Kyoto, Japan. The museum's collection includes approximately 300,000 items as of 2016, with 50,000 volumes ...

exhibition (in Japanese).
Yomiuri Shinbun television commercial
Produced by

Studio Ghibli is a Japanese animation studio based in Koganei, Tokyo."Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment". ''Studio Ghibli Collection - Madman Entertainment''. Retrieved 2020-12-14. It has a strong presence in the animation industry and has exp ...

and based on Sugiura manga (in Japanese).
Sugiura Shigeru's Sense of Humor
Manga scholar Ryan Holmberg's exploration of Sugiura's earliest work and influences. {{DEFAULTSORT:Sugiura, Shigeru 1908 births 2000 deaths Manga artists from Tokyo