Masakazu Katsura

Official Websitehttp://k2r.main.jp/ Masakazu Katsuras turning point in his life was an illness for which he was bedridden during which time he taught himself a different way to draw. Katsura entered the manga industry in his second or third year of high school when he entered a work for the Tezuka Award to win the prize money. However he says he did not grow up reading manga instead he read novels and watched movies. Video Girl Ai was made into an original video animation and has been released in North America. A liveaction movie was also made of the story. The main action of the fivevolume series DNA was made into an anime television show that did not sell well enough to finish so the story was concluded with a short OVA which was also released in North America. Is was made into at least two OVAs: one twoepisode side story and one sixepisode summary of the manga. Katsura also performed as a vocalist on the songs Tomorrow Will Be Tomorrow and Unseen Dream from the two soundtracks for the Video Girl Ai OVA. In 2008 he collaborated with Akira Toriyama his good friend and creator of Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump for the Jump SQ oneshot Sachiechan Good. The two became friends in the early 1980s having been introduced by their mutual editor Kazuhiko Torishima and have even parodied each other in their own manga. Toriyama credits Katsura with coming up with the idea to have two characters fuse together in Dragon Ball leading to the Fusion technique. However Katsura says this is only a rumor while he did in fact suggest it to him he knows that Toriyama was not listening and claims Toriyama later thought it up on his own.They worked together again in 2009 for the threechapter oneshot Jiya in Weekly Young Jump. Also in 2008 Katsura did a design illustration of the Batman costume for Bandais Movie Realization action figure line basing it on the costume used in the film The Dark Knight. Notable works outside anime: Love Destroy Video Game 1999 Character Design Astral Chain Video Game 2019 Character Design