Monkey Punch

Monkey Punch is the pen name of mangaka Kazuhiko Katou creator of the successful Japanese manga series Lupin IIIhttps://anilist.co/manga/30438/ which is still being animated to this day. Influenced by Osamu Tezukahttps://anilist.co/staff/96938/s works he began to draw and moved to Tokyo in 1957 after graduating from high school. From 1959 he wrote for a publishing company specializing in rental books under the pen name Kazuhiko Katou while working on doujins with his younger brother Teruhiko Katou and another friend. After moving to Tokyo he was influenced by the American parody magazine MAD and his style changed to an American comic book style. This caught the attention of Fumito Shimizu editorinchief of Futabasha and in 1966 he made his fullfledged debut with Playboy Nyuumon under the pen name Eiji Muta. Under the name of Mania Group it was made to look as if Senji Mashuu and Eiji Kirita were participating but in reality Katou wrote the whole story by himself. In 1966 under the orders of editorinchief Shimizu he changed his pen name to Monkey Punch. Katou didnt like the name because it was given to a newcomer at random and he planned to change it after about a year but he couldnt change it because the work he published under this name the following year became a big hit. In May 1967 he was selected to draw the cover art for Zengan Manga Story Action Tokushuugou which was published mainly for newcomers to Manga Story such as Baron Yoshimoto and Ken Tsukikage and he continued to draw the cover art for Shuukan Manga Action a weekly seinen manga magazine that was newly launched in August with Shimizu as editorinchief. He also began serializing Lupin III under the title with the notation Original by Leblanchttps://anilist.co/staff/122907/. in the August 10 first issue of Manga Action. In addition to Lupin III he has also created works such as Fukushuu Daikou Cinderella Boyhttps://anilist.co/manga/71117/ and MUSASHI: Gundouhttps://anilist.co/anime/1200/. In 1996 he took on the challenge of directing an animated film with Lupin III: Dead or Alivehttps://anilist.co/anime/1416/. He passed away due to pneumonia on April 11 2019. Awards: Inkpot Award Rome Comic Festival ROMICS Gold Award AMD Award for Merit Japan Cartoonists Association Award Minister of Education Culture Sports Science and Technology Award Source: Wikipedia