Steamboy, Memories director joins Osamu Tezuka, Kazuo Koike, Goseki Kojima

Manga creator and anime director Katsuhiro Otomo was inducted into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame on Friday. Otomo is only the fourth Japanese inductee and the first one in eight years. Otomo was scheduled to attend Comic-Con International, where the Eisner Award winners were announced, but his appearance was cancelled.

The previous Japanese inductees — all by judges' choice — were Osamu Tezuka (2002), Kazuo Koike (2004), and Goseki Kojima (2004). Other inductees include the awards' namesake Will Eisner, Stan Lee, Otomo's colleague Moebius, and Winsor McCay.

Otomo is best known for creating the stories of Akira, Steamboy, and Memories, and he directed or co-directed the anime for all of these. Otomo also directed the 2006 live-action film adaptation of Yuki Urushibara's Mushishi supernatural manga. Otomo later created the Hipira: The Little Vampire manga, which received a 12-episode television anime adaptation in 2009. Otomo has created the Domu, The Legend of Mother Sarah, Sayonara Nippon, and SOS! Tokyo Metro Explorers manga, among others, and has worked on the Freedom, Spriggan, and Metropolis anime.

Otomo recently published a new illustration book, titled Kaba 2 . He is now working on the Short Peace omnibus project assembling "top creators at the leading edge of Japanese animation, exploring possible future avenues of expression." There will be four shorts in the anthology, including Otomo's historical story "Hi-no-youjin."

Source: animeanime.jp