Trivia

In January 1965, Tezuka received a letter from American film director Stanley Kubrick; Kubrick had watched Astro Boy (1963) and wanted to invite Tezuka to be the art director of his next movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). Tezuka could not afford to leave his studio for a year to live in England, so he refused. Although he could not work on it, he loved the film, and would play its soundtrack at maximum volume in his studio to keep him awake during long nights of work.

Tezuka is a descendant of Hattori Hanzo, a famous ninja and samurai.

When he was younger, Tezuka's arms swelled up and he became ill. He was treated and cured by a doctor, which made him want to be a doctor. However, he began his career as a manga artist while a university student, drawing his first professional work while at school. At a crossing point, he asked his mother whether he should look into doing manga full-time or whether he should become a doctor (at the time, being a manga author was not a particularly rewarding job). The answer his mother gave was: "You should work doing the thing you like most of all." Tezuka decided to devote himself to manga creation on a full-time basis. He graduated from Osaka University and obtained his medical degree, but he would later use his medical and scientific knowledge to enrich his sci-fi manga, such as Black Jack.

He was accused of racism after drawing blacks in sterotypical fashion, but insisted that he was only continuing the styles he saw in American comics and films. This point has often been a source of constant soul-searching among Tezuka's publishers, especially in the USA. As of 2003, Dark Horse has begun to publish Tezuka's manga wholly unedited in the US, adding a disclaimer that states that while Tezuka held no racism himself, his artwork was a product of its time, and that further that it would be wrong to retroactively change his works without his input.

During the US occupation of Japan after World War 2, he sold pin-up drawings of women to US troops, often trading his artwork for military rations.

He cites cartoonist Walt Disney and the 1930 graphic novel "He Done Her Wrong" as a major influence on his work.

Was an avid baseball fan, and licensed the "grown up" version of his character Kimba the White Lion as the logo for the Seibu Lions of the Nippon Professional Baseball League.

Liked to make cameos in his manga.

He was a fan of the American comic book superhero Superman, and was made honorable chairman of the Superman Fan Club in Japan on October 6 1983.

He graduated in 1960 from the Medical University of Nara (Japan) with a dissertation about the membrane structure of sea nails.

In his childhood he kept a ground beetle named "Osamushi". He later made this name his pen name.

Tezuka grew up in Takarazuka City, Hyogo and his mother often took him to the Takarazuka Theatre. The Takarazuka Revue is performed by women, including the male characters. The Takarazuka Revue is known for its romantic musicals usually aimed at a female audience, thus having a large impact on the later works of Tezuka, including his costuming designs.

He came to the realization that he could use manga as a means of helping to convince people to care for the world.

His mother often comforted him by telling him to look to the blue skies, giving him confidence.

Gave guidance to many known cartoonists such as Shotaro Ishinomori and Gô Nagai.

During his lifetime, over-zealous Japanese fans called him "The god of Japanese comics".

An incredibly prolific (and fast) artist, he was known to draw as many as ten pages of artwork in a single day.

His childhood nickname was "gashagasha-atama", or "messy head" ("gashagasha" is slang for "messy" and "atama" means "head").

The Disney film The Lion King (1994) came under controversy for allegedly being inspired by Tezuka's tale "Kimba the White Lion", about a young lion who grows into a mature ruler.

Father of Macoto Tezuka.

His hobbies were bug collecting, entomology, Walt Disney and baseball.

He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2002.