There’s no way to describe Osamu Tezuka other than “the godfather of manga and anime.” The legendary manga artist blazed trails throughout the 1950s with hits like Phoenix, Princess Knight, and Kimba the White Lion. Despite that success, Tezuka wasn’t keen on staying in one place creatively, and opened his own animation studio, Mushi Production, in 1961. This move led to production of Astro Boy in 1963, cementing the start of anime as it’s now known.
Not all of Tezuka’s gambles paid off, as Mushi Production crumbled in the 1970s amid the production of the Animerama trilogy of adult animated films—including Cleopatra and Belladonna of Sadness. However, the artist kept pressing on regardless, eventually leading to the creation of everyone’s favorite unlicensed doctor, Black Jack in 1973. Without Osamu Tezuka, anime and manga simply wouldn’t exist as they do today.
