Welcome one and all to the first post on Gutternaut’s new domain. And to start our new approach, we’ll be focusing on a manga creator who is comparable to Stan Lee. From being the weird old man who cameos out of the blue to introducing genre-defining comics and characters. And for some reason YouTubers like Super Eyepatch Wolf mistake him for the arguably more famous Akira Toriyama. His name is Go Nagai.
This man is responsible for creating not one or two, but about a dozen series that defines Japanese sequential art. For better and for worse.
Kiyoshi (Go) Nagai: The Proto-Gekiman!
Nagai is a mangaka who’s own life could be a manga. The young Kiyoshi Nagai was born sometime after his family just barely scraped through WWII in Shanghai. Post-WWII Japan was a tough time for the country and its citizens. After a brutal regime from the imperial state, Japan was undergoing a reconstruction to more peaceful economic development. It was a time of great risk as supplies were hard to come by with the black market being the only means of getting them. But those same risks allowed for the development for Japan to catch up with the West.
Early Developments
After losing his father as a child, Kiyoshi sees the firsthand effects of war, influencing some of his later work. With only his mother, brothers, and Japan’s welfare society, Nagai settles in Tokyo. Nagai, after encountering a translated copy of the Divine Comedy and the works of Osamu Tezuka, finds his passion (ikigai). Something that would help Nagai get through some hard times when he suffers severe diarrhea and catarrh of colon. This makes Nagai aware of his own mortality and the drive to make a name for himself in manga.
Nagai’s Struggles
But when even your own mother disapproves of the choices you make in life, there are going to be problems. A lot of families expected their kids to get jobs in the developing companies including Toyota. With that in mind, it almost seems like a waste to take risks in manga. With help from his older brother Yasutaka, Kiyoshi took the pen name Go Nagai and submitted many works to publishers often with rejection. As someone who couldn’t find work in my preferred field for a very long time, it’s very relatable.
Still all of those struggles pay off eventually as Shonen Sunday found something they liked. After much trial and error, Nagai eventually gets a job with the manga legend Shotaro Ishinomori as an assistant. All of that hard work with Ishinomori allowed Nagai to become a professional manga artist starting with short gag-manga. But for Nagai to really get out of his shell, he decides to take more risks.
In strange twists of fate, Nagai exposes himself to televised debates and investigative journalism. With how stagnant the manga industry was during the late 60s, Nagai decided to take a risk by being one of the first mangaka to participate in Shueisha’s Weekly Shonen Jump. Yes, the very magazine that would display hits like Dragon Ball and My Hero Academia decades later. Once again, the risks payed off with Nagai getting his first major success with Harenchi Gakuen.
Success Achieved
Unlike his earlier gag manga, Harenchi Gakuen used Nagai’s experiences with debates and journalism to allow manga to push the boundaries of shame. Because of this series, the peeping gags and uplifting skirts that were pretty common for over 40 years. Admittedly this became a very tired trope nowadays with repeated poorly executed uses making Shonen stories look immature. But back in those days, there were no sexy or cutesy gags just unmemorable short burst jokes.
Harenchi Gakuen is very much the culmination of many risks and inspirations for Nagai. Putting scandals and school together would create hilarious situations that inspire copycats. Nothing even felt forced, just in character moments across the board. So infectious that even the editors wanting to help push those limits. At the end of it, Harenchi Gakuen helped make Shonen Jump a success. So show those embarrassing scenes you see in anime some respect! But don’t get too hooked on them because people have stretched that trope thin.
Dynamic Productions: The Legend of Go Nagai
Thanks to Harenchi Gakuen, Nagai learns the business side of a mangaka. See much like US Comics today, he was practically cut off from any royalties involving Harenchi Gakuen’s franchise. So to get around this, Nagai founded Dynamic Productions to manage relations and contractual rights. In fact, anime adaptations wouldn’t even be around today without Dynamic Pro’s example. Show respect to this controversial figure you toxic stretchers!
Major Breakthroughs
This is especially since Nagai decides to experiment with different genres again with serious themes. Take for example, the occult activities in Mao Dante. In fact Dante is what helps kickstart two of Nagai’s most famous series. Dante was originally going to be adapted for an anime, but some major changes were needed for a larger audience. For one thing, instead of a giant monster the protagonist needed to be more humanoid. This leads to the birth of Nagai’s magnum opus that stands the test of time, Devilman.
Devilman
Devilman is a true testament to Nagai’s ideals of pushing the boundaries. By taking inspiration from Nagai’s post-war struggles and the Gulf War over his head, Nagai creates a timelessly dark story embodying the horrors of war. In fact, it was one of the few series of its time to have a tragic ending. Which if you saw the cheesy animated show that this manga was made for, you’d be pretty confused.
But what about the other series that forms with inspiration from Dante? Well with Nagai wanted to have a little fun while putting all of his serious storytelling into Devilman. So he created the very definition of a Super Robot, Mazinger Z.
Mazinger Z
What starts as the idea of a car to walk around traffic evolves into a story of controlling an invincible body. Unlike Gundam or Evangelion, Mazinger Z stands out by capturing the enthusiasm of advanced technology. The mechs are complete extensions of the pilots complete with sharing their movements, not just moving weapons. Not that they aren’t dangerous. The title mech for example is named that if not handled properly might as well be the devil. Even the enemy machines, the Mechanical Beasts, fit into this theme. They genuinely feel like extensions of their commanders complete with the extremes and tactics they employ. But with proper oversight could just as easily be a god that dominates any evil thrown at it.
Cutie Honey
Not many people even realize how much input one series has for the development of anime like Sailor Moon. In this case, Nagai wanting to have some fun times along with Devilman and Z creates Cutie Honey. The series focuses on a female character who is highly capable unlike most other female characters at the time. This franchise however has a bad reputation due to how racy the scenes of the title character is in. The original Cutie Honey anime was even cut short because of those instances. Yet the franchise has a surprising number of female fans. Probably because Honey is not seductive and has more character than people give her credit for. She’s loving, compassionate, but deeply troubled by the death of her father. So she keeps whatever friends she has close. Something Nagai relates to on a very personal level.
Legacy of Go Nagai
Dynamic Productions and Go Nagai go on to create more series from sequels to spin-offs of recognizable series. Go Nagai also created the idea that is later used by Ken Ishikawa to produce the combining mech, Getter Robo. Nagai even won several awards for his exploits that push the boundaries of manga. About every year, no one can pass a toy store in Japan without seeing a Mazinger Z die-cast figure.
Several notable creators like Evangelion‘s Hideaki Anno, Berserk‘s Kentaro Miura, and even Suda51 are all inspired by Nagai. While Tezuka is definitely the undisputed “God of Manga” it’s safe to call Nagai the Determinative Defier. Sounds better than just the “Dirty Uncle” the internet likes to call him.
Unfortunately, 50 years after the genre-defining exploits they began to show their age. As stated before, gags like flashing panties and peeping became so oversaturated that they just aren’t funny anymore. Do something enough times, even innocently, it loses its appeal.
Overshadowed
Other times, some aspects of the franchises exaggerate so much that there is no room for development or fun. Most of the time, it’s because of focus on the over-the-top violence or stylish battles shown with vibrant backgrounds. Cutie Honey has often suffered the worst of this. Most of the time it was just the same old story of Honey facing off against Panther Claw.
Mazinger Z while still a most commercially successful franchise also suffers from this. With Mobile Suit Gundam’s more broad appeal and cheaper figures, Mazinger Z appeals more to collectors and nostalgia buffs. Even the more recent movie Mazinger Z: Infinity plays more to the past of the franchise. As such Nagai sticks more to artwork and business when it comes to Mazinger Z. One example is a crossover project between Z and Transformers.
Back from the Dead
The only Dynamic Pro series to even hold a candle anymore in today’s world is Devilman. Devilman is still a classic not just for its themes but because it is genuinely horrifying and shows true vulnerability. One of the reasons Devilman was so scary was the psychedelic situations the title character and others find themselves in. Those situations show Nagai at his strongest as an artist by taking advantage of his limitations to create surrealism. This causes the characters to look like they are going insane or showing themselves off as monsters figuratively and literally.
But Not in Tact
Compare those pictures to spin-offs like Devilman Lady. One of the reasons this lukewarm series is criticized is because of the amount of gratuitous rape. Rape as drama is a trope that has been overused and often gives off the wrong message. Showing off characters’ voluptuous bodies while they’re violated tends to make it look appealing. That’s the exact opposite of displaying cruelty and malicious intent. Some the intent’s more ridiculous than terrifying. Fortunately most of the series has deeper developments and certain aspects of the manga retain the surrealism for tense moments. Unfortunately the ending is what kills the series for me; so much potential wasted in the last moments.
Where’s the Heart?
But the worst part is, none of Nagai’s current works show the struggle or risk taking his older works do. During the 2000s the manga he along with other notable mangaka create Sengoku Era samurai series along with creators like Kazuo Koike. But due to competition with artists like Fist of the North Star‘s Tetsuo Hara nothing seems to recapture the feeling. Most other work are just spin-offs or remakes that lack the heart of their sources like Grendizer Giga.
Even his most recent manga Devilman Saga is little more than repeating the story of Devilman with a sci-fi premise. Only it lacks the feeling of horror or stakes, just twists, misdirections, and relying on information from the older series. At least the Netflix series Devilman Crybaby gets the surrealism down.
Found it
The only Dynamic manga I actually have any interest in the modern times is the Gekiman! autobiographies. They detail Nagai’s time creating his most notable franchises under the fictional personas of Geki. This includes what could have been in some of his manga that had to be removed, and Nagai’s struggles. After seeing some of the images, I certainly can’t blame Nagai for how things are. But as they all show, despite how Nagai is showing his age, he still loves creating manga. While his skills as a writer have all but diminished, his artwork has come a long way.
But what do you all think? Is Nagai just a weird old man who’s best days are long behind him? Or is there still something in this surreal man’s mind? As always thanks for coming and remember to look between the panels.