Amin Abbas

Akihide Yanagi, is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator who collaborated with Japanese artists who work for US comic book publishers such as Marvel, DC and Dark Horse. His clients are Gurihiru, Kamome Shirahama, Kia Asamiya among many others.

In an exclusive interview with Arab News Japan, Akihide Yanagi shared how “back in the 70s, there were a lot of American cartoons on Japanese TV. Mainly Hanna-Barbera shows. I grew up watching those and then when I was 7 years old, I moved to the US because my father became a manager of a Japanese company’s US facility. I lived there for about 5 years and watched more American shows. Back then, I loved a lot of them, especially Super Friends, Scooby Doo, the old Spider-man cartoon to name a few. I also loved sit coms, Happy Days was my favorite. Young Ron Howard was in the show as well as Pat Morita who portrayed Miyagi in Karate Kid.  I also loved Mork and Mindy with Robin Williams and Bosom Buddies with Tom Hanks. The re-runs of the Batman TV show from the 60s was also my favorite”.

Yanagi also listed some of his favorite movies including The Last Star Fighter, Blade Runner, Black Rain, Austin Powers, The Naked Gun, Zootopia, and Patlabor 2.

“Of course, I love most of the movies based on Comic Books, especially the Marvel ones. I love all of the Marvel Cinematic Universe films. If I had to choose one, my best choice would be the Captain America: The Winter Soldier,” he said.

Yanagi shared that the first comic he purchased was Shogun Warriors, he went on to read the first 3 issues. Gradually his passion for comic books grew, especially following the release of X-Men.

Yanagi also shared how Japanese manga inspired him as a child since it was everywhere.

“The first manga that I loved was Doraemon. There was a giant anthology monthly kids’ magazine called Coro Coro Comics which had Doraemon and other manga in it along with information about kid’s hobby back in the 80s. I love reading that magazine. Then I moved on to reading Shonen Jump. It had many popular manga in one magazine. One of my favorites from Jump was Wingman by Masakazu Katsura and Kimagure Orange Road by the late Izumi Matsumoto,” he told Arab News Japan;. 

Some of the manga that Yanagi loves include: Slam Dunk by Takehiko Inoue, Sakigake Otokojuku by Akira Miyashita, Flip Flap by Minoru Toyoda, and Five Start Stories by Mamoru Nagano.

“For anime, I’m a big robot/mech anime fan. My favorite might be Votoms, Gaogaiger, Macross F and Δ(Delta). As a kid I liked the Doraemon anime, but loved Mazinger Z re-runs and other robots anime series that you can think of from the 70s and 80s. I kind of think these robot anime series and superhero comic books have something in common that deeply attracts me. I don’t watch a lot nowadays, but there are some that I watch sometimes,” he added.

About the establishment of his career as a manga artist, Yanagi said: “I first started working as an editor at a video game magazine but I could not give up working on comic books in Japan, and luckily found a job at a Japanese publisher that was publishing Spawn in Japanese. They also published Wild C.A.T.s, Gen 13 and Witchblade in Japanese.  I really wanted to introduce American comics to the Japanese market since I love them so much”.

“I think there are a lot of manga in Japan, and so I thought the Japanese readers will accept American Comic books. Its story, characters, culture, history, they are all attractive and I want more people to read and understand the American Comic Book culture. That is one of my goals,” he told Arab News Japan.

Yanagi has expressed interest in the Middle East, and hopes to one day visit. He is also interested in meeting artists in the region and possibly collaborating someday. 

Yanagi recommends that those who aspire to be an illustration artist for manga and comics should keep drawing and ask people who are experts in the field for advice.