Leiji Matsumoto, legend of Japanese manga and animation, died last week at the age of 85 from heart failure, production company Toei announced on Monday (February 20th). The mangaka was particularly known for science fiction works such as Space Battleship Yamato (1974) or Galaxy Express 999 (1977), but also the Captain Harlock series (Harlock in original version and in English). Released in Japan between 1977 and 1979 and then adapted into a cartoon, this work was a worldwide success, notably broadcasted on French television from 1980.
“Harlock is my most faithful and oldest friend. He is my alter ego in his determination, ”assured Leiji Matsumoto in 2011 at the Annecy Animation Film Festival, where he came to present the trailer for the film Harlock, Space Pirate. Icon of pop culture, the artist had also signed in the early 2000s a medium-length animated film whose album Discovery by the group Daft Punk provided the soundtrack.
Born in 1938 on the island of Kyushu, this admirer of the great mangaka Osamu Tezuka published his first manga, The Adventures of a Bee, at the age of 15 after winning a design competition. He also said that he was inspired in his work by the atomic bomb dropped by the United States in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, when he was 7 years old and lived in Fukuoka, 300 km away. Decorated in 2012 by France with the medal of Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, Leiji Matsumoto had celebrated in 2013 his 60 years of career at the Festival of the comic strip of Angoulême, of which he was the guest of honor.