He embarked on his journey to the stars, as his characters created in his long and successful career as a mangaka.
Master Leiji Matsumoto died at the age of 85 on February 13 due to heart failure.
The announcement of the daughter Makiko Matsumoto
“Leiji Matsumoto embarked on a journey to the sea of stars on February 13, 2023”, reads the mangaka’s official website, “He always said: ‘We will meet again in that place where the wheels of time cross’. We believe in those words and look forward to that day.” “He had a happy life because he was able to continue drawing stories like ‘mangaka’,” added his agent. The private funerals have already been celebrated but a public event would be planned to celebrate the cartoonist’s life and career on a date yet to be defined.
Akira Matsumoto was born on January 25, 1938 in the city of Kurume in the prefecture of Fukuoka, who became famous for his works in the space genre such as Captain Harlock, The Queen of the Thousand Years, Galaxy Espress 999, Starblazers (Space Battleship Yamato), Danguard. His first work at the age of 15 was “Adventures of a bee”.
Together with another great master of Japanese comics: Go Nagai, he gave birth to the new science fiction, made up of journeys into the infinite cosmos and encounters with new civilizations. He was able to make these adventures of his into poetry, in which the action of the characters gave way to thoughts of a valuable philosophy of life. He harbored in their hearts and thoughts a strong melancholy made up of moments of yearning and deafening silence, with his gaze turned towards infinity in search of something or answers that cannot always be found.
The immensity of the voids in space, described in such a meticulous way, almost as if it wanted to represent the soul of its heroes, simple protagonists so much so that they become complicated to understand, their desire for freedom in thoughts, words, deeds that they proudly flaunt, it is not understandable for everyone, so much so that it leads them to abandon their homeland, their origins. An asset so important that it leads them to fight against everything and everyone, sometimes even against their own kind. A great teaching!
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