news culture The creator of Harlock is dead
For all manga and anime lovers, this week started with a shock. The legendary Leiji Matsumoto, creator of Harlock, has left us. As is often the case lately with Japanese personalities, the announcement took place a few days after the death. The mangaka indeed died on Monday, February 13 of heart failure. He was 85 years old and leaves millions of saddened fans around the world.
Born on January 25, 1938 in Kurume, on the island of Kyushu, Akira Matsumoto (who will become Leiji, we will talk about it later) was passionate about aviation at a very young age. His father is an Imperial Japanese Army air service officer, and the boy relishes the WWII veteran’s tales. To follow in his father’s footsteps, he plans to become a pilot:
My father was a pilot and I started dreaming of flying in the sky. I had plans to be a pilot myself. But unfortunately, I became myopic when I was a college student. So I considered the career of an aeronautical engineer, but after the Japanese defeat, my father was relieved of his duties and we became poor. So this time I decided to become a cartoonist in order to be able to do what I dreamed of.
Leiji Matsumoto’s first contact with the world of Japanese comics dates back to the age of 9. It was then that he discovered the works of the legendary Osamu Tezuka (considered the father of manga), but also the animated films of Disney studios. The charm acts instantly and the person concerned understands that he can create entire universes with the help of a simple pencil. He produced his first comic strips (with a pirate character called Bokenki) and emerged victorious, at the age of 15, from an editorial competition which allowed him to release his very first manga: The Adventures of a Bee.
In 1957, when he befriended another mangaka, Tetsuya Chiba, he decided to leave his native island to join the Japanese capital. In Tokyo, he settled not far from the Shinjuku district and began to create shojos for several magazines, in other words mangas for young girls. There are works like Ganjisu no Me, Wakare no Waltz, Gin no Tani no Maria (inspired by the Franco-German film Marianne from my youth, whose mangaka saw the sets on the set) or Mizu no Okâsan. Little by little, he branched off into more mature manga, but the creation was tricky. In an interview with the magazine, he explains the following:
Osamu Tezuka posed a considerable problem to all mangakas, because the more his works were accomplished, the more they demanded that we stand out from them. Our destiny was thus subject to our ability to produce works that freed themselves from his style.
To stand out, he draws inspiration from his father’s stories and advocates an anti-war message. On the Planetebd.com site, he relates:
The message that I want to convey through my works is that this is not, and above all, it is no longer the time for all men to fight. On the contrary, it’s time to come together to try to save human life. Otherwise, we are heading straight for extinction. We must protect our planet, we are in a period of global warming and other ecological problems that are man-made. We must all come together to save life, to protect life in all its forms.
Leiji Matsumoto has passed away, but his work will live on
In 1961, Leiji Matsumoto married Miyako Maki, one of the first female mangaka and future creator of the famous Japanese doll Licca-chan, a competitor to Barbie. It was during this period that he decided to call himself Leiji instead of his real first name: Akira. Leiji is actually the transcription of the word “Reiji” which means “infinity fighter”. The reason ? His mother was descended from a line of samurai and he felt that the name Akira – very common in Japan – had no artistic impact. In 1968, he signed one of his first major works: Sexaroid. As the name suggests, the tone is much more adult and it gradually embraces this love for science fiction. During the following decade, Leiji Matsumoto becomes an absolutely essential mangaka and signs real masterpieces with Galaxy Express 999, Harlock or Space Battleship Yamato.
The author is more discreet in the 1980s, but that does not prevent him from experiencing great popularity in the world. In France, he is thus one of the first mangaka to make himself known thanks to the distribution of the cartoon Harlock. His philosophy has always been that of a man eager to leave a mark, while advocating a true message of peace and love. Thus, the skull and crossbones displayed on the ship’s flag is in truth a message of freedom. For the magazine Atom, he says:
The banner struck with a skull means this: join the ranks of those who want to live free, free from the yoke of the powerful. It is a call to men who want to act and think according to values freed from external pressures. The skull is by no means a threatening symbol; what this skull means is that even after my death, when only my skeleton will remain, I will always be a free man, faithful to my principles.
Made Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 2012, he experienced a burst of popularity by signing, ten years earlier, the medium-length animated film Interstella 5555 in collaboration with the French electro group Daft Punk. If Leiji Matsumoto left us suddenly, we can be sure: his work will last forever.
Goodbye Mr. Matsumoto and thank you.
