Naoki Urasawa: "It's not that I make dark manga, it's that our world is sick"
Interview by Amandine Schmitt
Published on , updated on
Manga author Naoki Urasawa. DR
Interview: The Amiens Comic Book Festival 2025, in partnership with Le Nouvel Obs, will take place from June 7 to 22, 2025. Guest of honor: Naoki Urasawa, author of the cult classics 20th Century Boys, Pluto, and Monster. Interview.
A manga monster is currently on French soil. Guest of honor at the Rendez-vous de la BD d'Amiens, where he is being honored with two exhibitions, manga artist Naoki Urasawa has achieved the feat of selling 150 million albums worldwide. Renowned for his complex stories that explore the twists and turns of the human soul, he can boast of having written several masterpieces. In addition to "Billy Bat" and "Pluto," a tribute to Tezuka's "Astro Boy," Urasawa is notably the author of the chilling "Monster." In the split-second Germany of the 1980s, a surgeon chooses to operate on a little boy rather than the city's mayor. The deaths unfortunately multiply around the child and here is the damned doctor, eaten away by his own guilt... In the thriller "20th Century Boys", a group of children announce the end of the world for December 31, 2000. As adults, they find themselves mixed up in the actions of an apocalyptic sect, which realizes one by one the predictions they had imagined thirty years earlier. Crowned with the best prize of the series at the Angoulême Festival in 2004, "20th Century Boys" was also ranked twentieth in the 100 best comics of the 21st century in a poll conducted by "Le Nouvel Obs" . We were able to meet Naoki Urasawa during a brief visit to Paris. The musician, who is also a musician, obviously traveled with his guitar.
Also read
Rintarô Interview : “Albator” determined the rest of my career”
Actually, before being contacted for this event, I didn't know this city. I discovered it with this invitation. But I've loved Jules Verne, and especially "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," ever since I was a child. Given that the city is closely linked to Jules Verne, who lived there for thirty-four years, I see it as a kind of stroke of fate.
Do you place any particular value on the original boards?According to my editor, I don't handle them with the necessary care and I always put them where there is food, drinks... Because I believe that if there is any problem with my drawings, I just have to redo them.
You've said you were influenced by Hergé. How did you discover him and what does he represent for you?Even before I knew Hergé's name, I knew "Tintin," published in Japan by a publishing house specializing in illustrated children's books. I discovered Moebius later, but I returned to Hergé and understood that these two authors had similarities. In the 1990s, I bought a lot of Tintin figurines in merchandise stores, which I have kept to this day.
Looking at your biography, one gets the feeling that you always took a very analytical look at manga, even when you were just a child.Even as a child, I found adults childish. I hated children's manga and had an extremely demanding eye. I continue to try to create manga that lives up to that same intransigence.
Also read
Interview with Junji Ito: "Reality is much scarier than my manga"
