Yoshihiro Tatsumi

TATSUMI celebrates the life and work of Japanese artist Yoshihiro Tatsumi-a manga pioneer who elevated the genre to a new level of creative expression and adult realism. A comics-crazed teenager, Tatsumi began to get published and was able to support his poor family in postwar occupied Japan. He finds even greater inspiration after meeting his idol, the famous Disney-esque animator Osamu Tezuka. But despite his success, Tatsumi became dissatisfied...

"Acclaimed for his visionary short-story collections The Push Man and Other Stories, Abandon the Old in Tokyo, and Good-Bye--originally created nearly forty years ago, but just as resonant now as ever--the legendary Japanese cartoonist Yoshihiro Tatsumi has come to be recognized in North America as a precursor of today's graphic novel movement. A Drifting Life is his monumental memoir eleven years in the making, beginning with his experiences as a...

In post-war occupied Japan, young Tatsumi's passion for comics not only leads him becomes a means of supporting his poor family but also leads him to redefine the manga landscape. He pioneered gekiga (dramatic pictures), an alternative genre for adults which is by encouraging an alternative genre for adults which is realistic, disquieting and grapples with the darker aspects of life. This film celebrates the life of this master and five of his most...