Masami Kurumada

Masami Kurumada was born on December 6, 1953, in Tsukishima, in Tokyo's Chuo ward. He practiced martial arts as a young man, and that shows in almost everything he drew. He is also known as a fan of boxing and pro wrestling.

His professional debut was Sukeban Arashi, which ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1974 to 1975 and followed a tough delinquent girl. His first big hit came soon after: Ring ni Kakero, from 1977 to 1981. The series follows young boxer Ryūji Takane and started as a grounded sports manga. Over time the bouts picked up near-supernatural special moves, a signature Kurumada would keep for the rest of his career. Ring ni Kakero is his own favorite work and got an anime between 2004 and 2011.

Next he made Fūma no Kojirō (1982 to 1983), about ninjas and a rival clan, later adapted as an OVA and a live-action TV series. In 1984 he started Otoko Zaka, a street-gang manga that failed to catch on with readers at the time.

The breakthrough came in 1986 with Saint Seiya. Seiya and other orphans are trained to become Saints, warriors who wear armor tied to the constellations and protect the goddess Athena. There is a clear ladder of rank: Bronze, Silver and Gold Saints, with the twelve Gold Saints guarding the houses of the Sanctuary in Greece. Their power comes from Cosmo, an inner energy, and every attack has a shouted name, like Pegasus Meteor Fist. Kurumada combined Greek myth, a fighting tournament and a band of brothers in arms, with Pegasus, Dragon, Cygnus, Andromeda and Phoenix. The manga ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump until 1990 and closed at 28 volumes. Toei's anime, from 1986 to 1989, ran 114 episodes and became a TV craze across Latin America and Europe in the 1990s. The toy line and its metal armor were a big part of that success.

In the 1990s he published B't X (1994 to 2000), science fiction about warriors who ride living machines, which also became an anime. From 2000 to 2009 he returned to boxing with Ring ni Kakero 2. In 2006 he went back to Athena's world with Saint Seiya: Next Dimension, published in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shōnen Champion until 2024. The series returns to the previous Holy War in the 18th century and is drawn in full color. Counting the original and Next Dimension, the story spans 44 volumes.

Saint Seiya keeps getting adapted. It had films in the 1980s, Heaven Chapter: Overture in 2004 and the CGI Legend of Sanctuary in 2014. In 2019 Netflix and Toei released a CGI series, and in 2023 came the live-action film Knights of the Zodiac, a Japan and United States coproduction.