Tetsuo Hara (record Producer)
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is 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 ...
. He is best known for co-creating the post-apocalyptic martial arts series ''
Fist of the North Star is a Japanese manga series written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' for 245 issues published from 1983 to 1988 and initially collected in 27 volumes ...
'' (1983–1988) with writer
Buronson , known by the pen names and , is a Japanese manga writer. Making his debut in 1972, he first found success with the hardboiled detective manga series '' Doberman Deka'' (1975–1979) alongside illustrator Shinji Hiramatsu. He is best-known fo ...
, which is one of the best-selling manga in history with over 100 million copies in circulation.


Early life

Although born in Tokyo, Hara lived in Matsubara-
danchi (, literally "group land") is the Japanese word for a large cluster of apartment buildings or houses of a particular style and design, typically built as public housing by government authorities. Older danchi are sometimes compared to Khrushchy ...
in
Sōka is a Cities of Japan, city in Saitama Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 249,645 in 118,129 households and a population density of 9100 persons per km². The total area of the city is . Geography Sōka is situated in ...
, Saitama. He is a cousin of comedian
Ryo Fukawa , also known as ROCKETMAN, is a Japanese comedian and musician. He belongs to Watanabe Entertainment. On television he generally takes minor roles and is characterized by his childlike temperament and boyish looks. He is also a member of the owara ...
. Hara began drawing characters from
Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu'', – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and animator. Considered to be among the greatest and most influential cartoonists of all time, his prolific output, pioneering techniques an ...
's ''
Astro Boy ''Astro Boy'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Osamu Tezuka. It was serialized in Kobunsha's ''Shōnen'' from 1952 to 1968. The 112 chapters were collected into 23 volumes by Akita Shoten. Da ...
'' and ''
Jungle Emperor Leo ''Jungle Emperor Leo'', known in Japan as is a 1997 Japanese animated adventure drama film focusing on the last half of Osamu Tezuka's manga, '' Jungle Taitei'' (known in earlier US productions as ''Kimba the White Lion'' and '' Leo the Lion'') ...
'', as well as
Ikki Kajiwara , known by the pen names and , was a Japanese author, manga writer, and film producer. He is known for the work about sports and martial arts, with images of heroic young men with the occasional fine details as he moves from one topic to anoth ...
and Naoki Tsuji's ''
Tiger Mask is a Japanese manga series written by Ikki Kajiwara and illustrated by Naoki Tsuji. The series was first published in Kodansha's ''Bokura Magazine'' from 1968 to 1970 and was later published in ''Weekly Shōnen Magazine'' from 1970 to ...
'' in first and second grade. In third and fourth grade he was obsessed with
Shotaro Ishinomori , né , was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, writer and director. Known as the "King of Manga" (漫画の帝王 (''Manga no Teiou)'' or 漫画の王様 (''Manga no Ousama)''), he is regarded as one of the greatest and most influential mang ...
's ''
Kamen Rider The , also known as ''Masked Rider Series'' (until ''Kamen Rider Decade, Decade'' and except Thailand), is a Japanese superhero fiction, superhero media franchise consisting of tokusatsu television programs, films, manga, and anime, created by ...
'' manga, while the work of
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 ...
showed him how diverse the medium could be. Hara had decided to become a manga artist by second and third grade. In middle school he read manga about becoming one, as well as autobiographical manga, and studied ''
yonkoma is a comic strip format that generally consists of gag comic strips within four panels of equal size ordered from top to bottom. They also sometimes run right-to-left horizontally or use a hybrid 2×2 style, depending on the layout requiremen ...
'' to improve his sequencing. He then entered the design program at his high school, joined the "manga
gekiga is a style of Japanese comics aimed at adult audiences and marked by a more cinematic art style and more mature themes. ''Gekiga'' was the predominant style of adult comics in Japan in the 1960s and 1970s. It is aesthetically defined by sharp ...
club," and submitted entries to manga competitions run by magazines. Hara also found inspiration by visiting the workplace of
Osamu Akimoto is a Japanese manga artist from Katsushika, Tokyo. He is best known for his long-running comedy series ''KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops'', which was continuously published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' for 40 years from 1976 to 2016. With 1,960 chapte ...
, who was an alumnus of his high school.


Career

When Hara approached ''
Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly Shōnen manga, ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump (magazine line), Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many Action (fiction), action scenes and a fair ...
'' about becoming a professional manga artist, editor Nobuhiko Horie liked his detailed artwork but noticed his poor story writing skills. Hara began working as an assistant to
Yoshihiro Takahashi is a Japanese Mangaka, manga artist. He writes under a pen name in which his first name ''Yoshihiro'' is spelled out in hiragana (よしひろ). Takahashi was born on September 18th, 1953, in Higashinaruse, Akita, a village in the Tōhoku region ...
and also attended manga classes supervised by
Kazuo Koike was a prolific Japanese manga writer ( gensakusha), novelist, screenwriter, lyricist and entrepreneur. He is best known for his violent, artful ''seinen'' manga, notably ''Lone Wolf and Cub'' (with Goseki Kojima, 1970–6), '' Lady Snowblood'' ...
. He published several
one-shot One shot may refer to: Film and television * One-shot film, a feature film shot in one long take with no edits, or manufactured to look like so * ''One Shot'' (2005 film), a Sri Lankan action film directed by Ranjan Ramanayake * ''One Shot'', a ...
s in 1982; "Mad Fighter" published in ''Fresh Jump'' in August, "Crash Hero" published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'', and the boxing story "Super Challenger", which won first place at the 33rd ''Fresh Jump'' Prize. His first serialized work in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' was ''Iron Don Quixote'', a motocross manga which lasted only ten weeks. Horie later claimed that the senior editor was willing to let Hara continue the series, but Horie chose to end it because he was confident the artist could do better. Hara then achieved fame with the publication of ''
Fist of the North Star is a Japanese manga series written by Buronson and illustrated by Tetsuo Hara. It was serialized in Shueisha's manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' for 245 issues published from 1983 to 1988 and initially collected in 27 volumes ...
'' in 1983, which he co-created with
Buronson , known by the pen names and , is a Japanese manga writer. Making his debut in 1972, he first found success with the hardboiled detective manga series '' Doberman Deka'' (1975–1979) alongside illustrator Shinji Hiramatsu. He is best-known fo ...
. Ending in 1988, it spawned a massive franchise and went on to become one of the best-selling manga in history with over 100 million copies in circulation. His next long-running serial was '' Keiji'', a period piece published in ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' from 1990 to 1993 and loosely based on a novel by Keiichiro Ryu. It was through
Kazuhiko Torishima is a Japanese publishing executive and former manga magazine editor, who is currently serving as an outside director at Bushiroad. He formerly worked at Shueisha, where he began as an editor in 1976, before becoming a senior managing director ( ...
that Hara received the offer from
Capcom is a Japanese video game company. It has created a number of critically acclaimed and List of best-selling video game franchises, multi-million-selling game franchises, with its most commercially successful being ''Resident Evil'', ''Monster ...
to create the character designs for the 1993 video game ''
Saturday Night Slam Masters ''Saturday Night Slam Masters'', known in Japan as is a 1993 pro wrestling fighting game developed and published by Capcom for arcades. The game features character designs by manga artist Tetsuo Hara, famous for ''Fist of the North Star''. Th ...
''. In 1998, Hara reunited with Horie, whom he had not worked with since ''Fist of the North Star'', to create ''Kōkenryoku Ōryō Sōsakan Nakabō Rintarō''. The artist stated that the editor-in-chief at
Shueisha is a Japanese publishing company headquartered in Chiyoda, Tokyo, Japan. Shueisha is the largest publishing company in Japan. It was established in 1925 as the entertainment-related publishing division of Japanese publisher Shogakukan. The ...
had warned him to stay away from Horie because he held "no status" at the company. Hara was bewildered as to what office politics had to do with creating manga, and he and Horie both left Shueisha after ''Kōkenryoku Ōryō Sōsakan Nakabō Rintarō'' ended in 2000. Hara, Horie and others then founded the publishing company
Coamix is a Japanese manga and anime production company headquartered in the in Kichijōji, Musashino, Tokyo.事業概要
...
that same year, and launched the manga magazine ''
Weekly Comic Bunch was a Japanese manga anthology marketed to a ''seinen'' audience that was edited by Coamix and published weekly by Shinchosha from 2001 to 2010 and became monthly from 2011 to 2024. The collected editions of their titles were published under t ...
'' in 2001. Hara serialized ''
Fist of the Blue Sky A fist is the shape of a hand when the fingers are bent inward against the palm and held there tightly. To make or clench a fist is to fold the fingers tightly into the center of the palm and then to clamp the thumb over the middle phalanges; i ...
'', a
prequel A prequel is a literary, dramatic or cinematic work whose story precedes that of a previous work, by focusing on events that occur before the original narrative. A prequel is a work that forms part of a backstory to the preceding work. The term ...
to ''Fist of the North Star'', in ''Weekly Comic Bunch'' from 2001 until the magazine's final issue in 2010. Originally published weekly, the manga changed to a semi-regular schedule after Hara was diagnosed with
keratoconus Keratoconus is an eye disorder in which the cornea, the transparent front part of the eye, gradually thins and bulges outward into a cone shape. This causes distorted vision, including blurry vision, double vision, increased nearsightedness, ...
. Despite previously announcing his intentions to retire after completing ''Fist of the Blue Sky'', Hara went on to create ''Ikusa no Ko: The Legend of Nobunaga Oda'', written by Seibo Kitahara and published in ''
Monthly Comic Zenon is a Japanese manga anthology. It is marketed to ''seinen'' public (young adult men), edited and published monthly by Coamix. From 2010 to 2020, it was formerly published by North Stars Pictures and Tokuma Shoten. It was produced as a replaceme ...
'' from 2010 to 2022. An English edition of ''Ikusa no Ko'' was concurrently published on the official Silent Manga Audition Community website. In 2021, Hara said that rather than creating work on his own, he was more interested in working with younger artists to create works as a team and pass on his forty years of experience.


Influences

Hara has cited Fujio Akatsuka, Shotaro Ishinomori,
Tetsuya Chiba is a Japanese manga artist. Considered a major figure in the history of manga, many of his early titles are still in print due to continued popularity. He is most famous for his sports stories, having been described as "the biggest contributor ...
, and
Ryoichi Ikegami is a Japanese manga artist that usually works as the illustrator in collaboration with a writer. He is best known for '' Crying Freeman'' (1986–1988), written by Kazuo Koike, and ''Heat'' (1999–2004), written by Buronson. The latter won the ...
as some of his influences. The comedy in Akatsuk'a work showed him the "power" of manga and how fun it can be. Ishinomori's designs for heroes and monsters instilled in Hara to never get lazy with character designs, even for those that are killed off quickly. Chiba's work taught him that as long as the characters are interesting, they can move and progress the story on their own. Hara said that Ikegami had the biggest impact on his art, as the "realism and luster" in his characters show the "power" of gekiga. Hara admits that from the very beginning of his career, he has never been good at creating the stories of manga. Instead he focuses on showcasing his art skills and creating characters. He credits his first editor, Nobuhiko Horie, for continuing to work with him his whole career and "helping to fill in for my weaknesses and further develop my strengths." He described the process as starting with Horie proposing a storyline, while Hara focuses on the characters and art direction and creates the storyboard. Hara then instructs his staff to help with the final product, describing the entire process as relying on "the strengths of each person to create something greater than the sum of its parts." For ''Fist of the North Star'' specifically, Hara revealed that he and Buronson did not see each other much and never had meetings directly about work. Instead, Horie acted as go-between for the two.


Works


Manga


Serials


One-shots


Novel illustrations

* ''Kōryū no Mimi'' - (2 volumes, 1991–1993) * ''Ichimu An Fūryū Ki'' (1 volume, 1992 Shueisha Bunko edition) * ''Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi'' (1 volume, 1995) *''
Miyamoto Musashi , was a Japanese swordsman, strategist, artist, and writer who became renowned through stories of his unique double-bladed swordsmanship and undefeated record in his 62 duels. Miyamoto is considered a ''Kensei (honorary title), kensei'' (swo ...
'' (8 volumes, 2013 Takarashimasha Bunko edition)


Other works

* ''
Saturday Night Slam Masters ''Saturday Night Slam Masters'', known in Japan as is a 1993 pro wrestling fighting game developed and published by Capcom for arcades. The game features character designs by manga artist Tetsuo Hara, famous for ''Fist of the North Star''. Th ...
''/''Muscle Bomber'' (1993 arcade game) - promotional illustrations. The character portraits in the arcade version were done by another artist, but they were replaced by Hara's own renditions in the console versions for the
Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System, commonly shortened to Super Nintendo, Super NES or SNES, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan, 1991 in North America, 1992 in Europe and Oceania a ...
and
Sega Genesis The Sega Genesis, known as the outside North America, is a 16-bit Fourth generation of video game consoles, fourth generation home video game console developed and sold by Sega. It was Sega's third console and the successor to the Master Sys ...
. * ''Muscle Bomber Duo'' (1993 arcade game) - promotional illustrations * ''Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II''/''Super Muscle Bomber'' (1994 arcade game) - promotional and in-game illustrations. * ''Itadaki Muscle!'' (2006 TV series) - illustrations for the opening intro. * ''Mori no Senshi Bonolon'' (2006 anime series) - producer, character designer * '' Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Tsuki-gatari-'' (2008–2010 manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Yuji Takemura * ''Thank You for the Music!'' (2010 album by
Ryo Fukawa , also known as ROCKETMAN, is a Japanese comedian and musician. He belongs to Watanabe Entertainment. On television he generally takes minor roles and is characterized by his childlike temperament and boyish looks. He is also a member of the owara ...
) - back cover illustration * '' Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Sake-gatari-'' (2010–2014 manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Yuji Takemura * '' Gifū Dōdō!! Hayate no Gunshi -Kuroda Kanbee-'' (2013–2017 manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Toshiaki Yamada * '' Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Hana-gatari-'' (2014–2018 manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Masato Deguchi * '' Maeda Keiji Kabuki Tabi'' (2019–present manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Masato Deguchi


References


External links


Official Website
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Hara, Tetsuo 1961 births Living people People from Shibuya Manga artists from Tokyo Fist of the North Star