Japanese · b. 1960
Naoki Urasawa is a Japanese manga artist and writer born in Tokyo Prefecture in 1960. He debuted in the early 1980s and became known for long, tightly plotted thrillers. His major works include Yawara!, Monster, 20th Century Boys, Pluto and Billy Bat. Monster follows a surgeon hunting a killer he once saved. 20th Century Boys mixes childhood memory with a conspiracy that threatens the world. Pluto, a reworking of an Astro Boy story by Osamu Tezuka, was made with the approval of Tezuka's estate. Urasawa has won the Shogakukan Manga Award several times, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize and the Eisner Award, and his books have sold tens of millions of copies. He is admired for patient pacing, large casts, cliffhanger structure and attention to the inner lives of his characters. He also performs and records music.