GORP Manga and Jazz Anime

A look at the work of Shinichi Ishizuka.

Not all anime and manga are created equal. While there are plenty that create fantastical worlds and focus on compelling stories and epic fight scenes that can drag on for multiple episodes, there also exists an entirely different genre of stories that do one thing really well: Nerd out on a niche interest.

The manga-ka Shinichi Ishizuka is known for two works that do that exceptionally well, and their subject matter couldn’t be further removed from each other. Born in 1971, Ishizuka began his higher education at the Japanese campus of Southern Illinois University, eventually moving to the United States to attend its main campus. He later transferred to San Jose State university, where he studied meteorology.

It was here that a fellow Japanese friend had admitted to him that one of the main reasons he had chosen to major in archeology was because he had read Naoki Urasawa’s Master Keaton, a manga that was later adapted into an anime that could be described as a mixture of Indiana Jones and Lupin the Third. It showed him that telling a powerful story could profoundly impact people’s lives, and sparked a desire to create something just as potent.