is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for his adaptations of

Kenji Miyazawa was a Japanese novelist and poet of children's literature from Hanamaki, Iwate, in the late Taishō and early Shōwa periods. He was also known as an agricultural science teacher, a vegetarian, cellist, devout Buddhist, and utopian social act ...

's children novels, including his work on the anime film ''Night on the Galactic Railroad'' (1985), and for several manga series set in the fantasy universe '' Atagoul''. Several of his manga feature anthropomorphic cats as protagonists.

Career

Masumura started his career in 1973 at the age of 21, when he was the runner-up in the 5th

Tezuka Award The is a semi-annual manga award offered by the Japanese publisher Shueisha since 1971, under the auspices of its ''Weekly Shonen Jump'' magazine. It awarded new manga artists in the Story Manga category. Its counterpart award, Akatsuka Award, a ...

and subsequently got to publish his debut work ''Kiri ni musebu yoru'' in ''

Weekly Shōnen Jump is a weekly ''shōnen'' manga anthology published in Japan by Shueisha under the ''Jump'' line of magazines. The manga series within the magazine consist of many action scenes and a fair amount of comedy. The chapters of the series that run ...

'', still using the

kanji are the logographic Chinese characters taken from the Chinese family of scripts, Chinese script and used in the writing of Japanese language, Japanese. They were made a major part of the Japanese writing system during the time of Old Japanese ...

version of his name (増村博) rather than the

hiragana is a Japanese syllabary, part of the Japanese writing system, along with ''katakana'' as well as ''kanji''. It is a phonetic lettering system. The word ''hiragana'' literally means "flowing" or "simple" kana ("simple" originally as contrast ...

one he would subsequently use. In 1975, he published a few short stories in the alternative manga magazine ''Garo'', which were his first stories set in the ''Atagoul'' universe. The series ''Atagoul Monogatari'' started 1976 in the manga magazine ''

Manga Shōnen was a monthly manga magazine published by Gakudōsha between December 1947 and October 1955. The magazine was important in forming and promoting shōnen manga in post-war Japan. Legacy The magazine was first published on 20 December 1947. ...

'' and became the first of several spin-off series that he drew for different magazines until 2011. Over 6 million copies of books within the ''Atagoul'' universe were sold as of 2007. Starting from 1983, Masumura has adapted several stories by Kenji Miyazawa into manga. In 1983 alone, he released adaptations of ''

Night on the Galactic Railroad , sometimes translated as ''Milky Way Railroad'', ''Night Train to the Stars'' or ''Fantasy Railroad in the Stars'', is a classic Japanese fantasy novel by Kenji Miyazawa written around 1927. The nine-chapter novel was posthumously published in 1 ...

'', ''

Gauche the Cellist is a short story by the Japanese author Kenji Miyazawa. It is about Gauche, a struggling small-town cellist who is inspired by his interactions with anthropomorphized animals to gain insight into music. The story has been translated into English, ...

'', ''Kaze no Matasaburo'' and ''The Life of Budori Gusuko''. ''Night on the Galactic Railroad'' was adapted into a successful anime film in 1985 under the direction of

Gisaburō Sugii is a Japanese anime director and Nihonga artist. He is best known for his work as director of the ''Touch'' series, the movie adaptation of the '' Arashi no Yoru ni'' children's book series, and the movie ''Night on the Galactic Railroad''. He i ...

Themes and influences

Many of Masumura's manga feature anthropomorphic cats and humans living together in the

utopian A utopia ( ) typically describes an imaginary community or society that possesses highly desirable or nearly perfect qualities for its members. It was coined by Sir Thomas More for his 1516 book ''Utopia'', describing a fictional island society ...

fantasy land "Atagoul" on the continent "Yonezaad", which spans fantastic landscapes made up of minerals and megasized plants. The most famous character is the humorous cat Hideyoshi, the protagonist of ''Atagoul''. The idea of cats and humans living at equal terms derives from Miyazawa's short story ''The Acorns and Wildcat''. Masumura explained in an interview why he often chooses cats as characters over humans: "The second you set down a human face to this story, it changes the feeling of the story entirely, defining it around your own image, and I wanted to avoid that." The world-building of ''Atagoul'' is influenced by Kenji Miyazawa's fantasy world of ''Itahov'', which he could relate to on an emotional level. Like Miyazawa, Masumura uses

neologisms A neologism Greek νέο- ''néo''(="new") and λόγος /''lógos'' meaning "speech, utterance"] is a relatively recent or isolated term, word, or phrase that may be in the process of entering common use, but that has not been fully accepted int ...

in order to create a feeling of mystery. Masanao Amano describes Masumura's worldbuilding like this: "When reading the manga we become aware of sounds that are usually forgotten, such as little sounds in the dead of the night, sounds of nature, or the sound of the wind."

Legacy and Awards

Yonezawa shiminbus 200-170 yonezaado Rear

His work has been exhibited several times in art museums in Japan, among them solo exhibitions at Hachiōji Yume Art Museum in Tokyo in 2007, Sumida Hokusai Museum in 2018 and Yamagata Museum of Art in his home province in 2022. A public transport bus in his hometown of

Yonezawa Yonezawa City Hall is a city in Yamagata Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 81,707 in 33,278 households, and a population density of 150 persons per km2. The total area of the city is . Yonezawa is most famous for ...

features characters from ''Atagoul''. After the popularity of the 1985 adaptation of ''Night on the Galactic Railroad'', other anime films based on Miyazawa's work also used character design inspired by Masumura, like ''

Spring and Chaos is a 1996 Japanese anime television special inspired by the life of poet Kenji Miyazawa, released in Japan to mark the 100th anniversary of Miyazawa's birth. It was directed by Shoji Kawamori. It was released in North America by Tokyopop. Miy ...

'' (1996, directed by

Shōji Kawamori is a Japanese anime creator and producer, screenwriter, visual artist, and mecha designer. He is best known for creating the '' Macross'' mecha anime franchise and the ''Diaclone'' toyline, which were in turn the basis for the '' Robotech'' ...

) and '' The Life of Budori Gusuko'' (2012, also directed by Gisaburō Sugii). ''Atagoul'' was adapted into an CG-animated short released in 2004. His manga have not been translated into English. However, the first four volumes of ''Atagoul wa Neko no Mori'' have been translated into French in 2015. Besides the Tezuka Award in 1973, Masumura received the following awards: * Japan Cartoonists Association Award 1997: Grand Prize for ''Atagoul Tamatebako'' * Itahov Prize 2001

Works

Serializations

One-shots

, ''

'' , - ! scope="row" , 1978 , ''Eien naru hitomi no mure'' , 永遠なる瞳の群れ , ''Manga Shōnen''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Masumura, Hiroshi Manga artists Japanese fantasy writers 1952 births Living people