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Kazuhiko Katō (Japanese: 加藤一彦, Hepburn: Katō Kazuhiko, May 26, 1937 – April 11, 2019), known by the pen name Monkey Punch (モンキー・パンチ, Monkī Panchi), was a Japanese manga artist, best known for his series Lupin III.
Katō was born in Hamanaka, Hokkaido; he began drawing at a very young age, but did not draw manga until junior high school, when his manga strips were used in the school newspaper.[1] After graduating, he moved to Tokyo to look for work and began going to a technical school for electronics, continuing to draw for fun. While working in a dōjinshi group with other artists, he was recruited by Futabasha and drew yonkoma.[2] He was an assistant to Naoki Tsuji on Zero-sen Hayato and Tiger Mask.[3]
Lupin III made its debut on August 10, 1967, in the first issue of the magazine Weekly Manga Action; the cover was also drawn by Monkey Punch. It went on to become an extremely popular and successful media franchise, spawning numerous manga, six animated television series, seven animated feature films, two live-action films, three OVAs, near-yearly television specials since 1989, music CDs, video games, and a musical. Monkey Punch himself even directed the 1996 film, Dead or Alive.[1]
On April 21, 2007, Monkey Punch participated in a series of lectures on the "interaction of manga and culture throughout the world" at the Freer Gallery of Art.[7] In 2008, Monkey Punch was a judge at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs' Second International Manga Awards.[8]
He designed the characters for the pachinko game CR Ginroku Gijinden Roman in 2012.[9] The following year an anime adaptation of the game began airing on January 7, 2013, with Monkey Punch's designs adapted by Satoshi Hirayama, and was streamed with English subtitles on Crunchyroll.[9][10]
Katō first started to work as a professional manga artist, under the pen name Kazuhiko Katō (加東一彦, Katō Kazuhiko, pronounced the same as his real name, but written with different characters). In 1965, he made his debut with Playboy School, writing under the name of Eiji Gamuta (がむた永二, Gamuta Eiji). The editor of the magazine that "discovered him" then suggested the pen name Monkey Punch.[1] Katō claims that he did not like the name, but agreed because it was his boss's idea and his next series was only supposed to be a three-month project.[1] When the series, Lupin III, became popular, he was stuck with the name.
Katō's younger brother, Teruhiko (輝彦), worked as his assistant on Lupin III. For years it was widely believed that the pen name Monkey Punch referred to the two brothers working together as a creative duo, but in a 2017 interview they clarified that this idea stemmed from a mistaken magazine article, and that the name Monkey Punch should be understood to refer exclusively to the older brother Kazuhiko, who did all of the main creative work concerning the characters, story, and the main drawings. The younger brother Teruhiko explained that he was exclusively doing assistant work.[3]
Monkey Punch has stated that Osamu Tezuka was the reason he wanted to become a manga artist.[3] He acknowledged the influence Mad magazine artist Mort Drucker had on his work.[3][16]
