Naoki Urasawa (浦沢 直樹, Urasawa Naoki, born January 2, 1960 in Fuchū, Tokyo, Japan) is a Japanese manga artist and occasional musician. He has been called one of the artists that changed the history of manga, and has received the Shogakukan Manga Award three times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize twice, and the Kodansha Manga Award once.

Biographie

Urasawa graduated from Meisei University with a degree in economics. He made his professional manga debut with Return in 1981. Three of his series have been adapted into anime: Yawara! A Fashionable Judo Girl (1986–1993), Master Keaton (1988–1994), and Monster (1994–2001). Arguably his most notable work, 20th Century Boys (2000–2006), was made into a three-part live-action movie series, which were released in 2008 and 2009. As a storyteller, his most distinctive characteristics are his dense, multi-layered, interconnecting narratives, his mastery of suspense, clever homages to classic manga & anime and a frequent use of German characters and settings.

In 2008, Urasawa took a guest teaching post at Nagoya Zokei University, where he taught "Modern Expression Course: Manga Classes" two to three times a year, although the class met every month. Initially planned for only five students, Urasawa agreed to expand it to fifteen in an effort to create more "real artists." Also in 2008, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, Junot Diaz praised Monster, adding that "Urasawa is a national treasure in Japan." Oricon held a poll on the Mangaka that Changed the History of Manga in 2010, mangaka being the Japanese word for a manga artist, and Urasawa came in tenth.

As a guest at the 2012 Japan Expo in France, Urasawa talked about how entered the manga industry, gave a live drawing demonstration, and performed two songs as a musician, and joined rock band Hemenway on stage the following day. Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki, whom he's previously worked with on Monster, Pluto and Billy Bat, began writing a sequel to Master Keaton in 2012 titled Master Keaton Remaster. When asked why he went back to a series after so many years, Urasawa stated it was because with the original series he had a hard time making the story he wanted due to contractual obligation, and because people affected by the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami said they had enjoyed the series, so he wanted to do something for them. In August 2013, Urasawa created his first "monster manga" titled Kaijū Ōkoku (Monster Kingdom), a 41-page one-shot published in Big Comic.