Because of this, Nagai's use of gags, puns, and crude humor started to become a norm in manga. His early days as a manga artist were met with criticism from content moderators, but had driven an increase in readership in Shonen Jump. Nagai's influence as a mangaka had reached audiences all over Japan.
#Devilman manga go nagai series#
Near and after the 2010s, Nagai began his autobiography work Gekiman while also doing other projects most notably crossovers with notable series including Devilman vs Getter Robo, some original works like Bijinman, and manga focused on more notable works like Grendizer Giga and Devilman Saga. At the start of the 21st century, Nagai's more notable series would get spin-offs from other manga artists while Nagai himself worked with several magazines most notably including Sengoku Era samurai including Date Masamune and Hojo Soun. By the late 80-90s, Nagai would work on remakes and sequels of his more notable series including Mazinger, Devilman, and Cutie Honey.
Near the 80s, works such as Hanappe Bazooka (a collaboration with the famed Kazuo Koike) and Susano-O would challenge the limits with Susano-O winning the 1980 Kodansha Manga Award. More gag oriented series including Kekko Kamen featured a corrupt school system that the protagonists had to fight against. Some series including Violence Jack and Shutendoji would continue the violent and darker trends starting with Devilman. By the time Devilman was developed both in anime, he worked closely with Toei until a fallout between ownership of Gaiking that was designed by Nagai forced them to separate. Later incorporating horror elements starting with Demon Lord Dante, Nagai would use Dante as a template for later similar works. By the time he started work with Weekly Shonen Jump, Nagai began utilizing his more creative yet questionable content starting with Harenchi Gakuen and furthered it with Abashiri Ikka. The start of his career had him begin with gag manga. While Nagai's lighthearted storytelling remained more-or-less the same, his style improved over the years. The storylines are also fast, clear, and easy to understand. His piecework was also unique at the time featuring large frames showing great detail and emphasizing actions including the dialogue and sound effects jumping out. A lot of manga after Harenchi Gakuen also included quite a bit of sex appeal from female characters to the point of nudity and gory scenes after the success of Devilman. Nagai also stated that he was greatly influenced by Sanpei Shirato much in the same Tezuka was with Walt Disney. Other less serious series tended to include a couple of slapstick gags while poking fun at social norms. Witnessing the affects first hand, he incorporated stories to remind his generation on how war works and how there are no actual winners even in spite of beliefs or loyalty, this is part of the reason Devilman became so popular during its manga run. Nagai was among several manga artists as the first being born after the post-war effects. Go Nagai had written and drawn multiple manga covering several genre's most notably horror, science fiction, and fantasy works. Since 2009, he is a member of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's nominating committee. On 1974, Nagai and Ken collaborated ideas which lead to the creation of Getter Robo. With Dynamic Productions' founding, Nagai started creating his more famous works from the demonic hero Devilman, the giant robot Mazinger Z, to the introduction of the transforming magical girl Cutey Honey. There he met Ken Ishikawa who became his assistant. With the success of his works, Nagai founded Dynamic Productions with his brothers to help him with his works by funding his manga and anime production and to manage relations and contracts with other companies. Ironically, these protests gave Nagai the idea to create manga such as Abashiri Ikka, which like Harenchi Gakuen became popular during that period. While Harenchi Gakuen was heavily criticized at the time for showing erotica, fans saw this as an icon for a new generation of manga. Kiyoshi took the pen name Go Nagai after becoming an assistant to Ishinomori and started writing one-shot gag manga before writing more elaborate stories for Shonen Jump. Eventually his works were noticed by the famous manga artist Shotaro Ishinomori. Kiyoshi's brother, Yasutaka would often help him in his manga, with several rejections. After suffering diarrhea in prep school and recovery the hospital with catarrh of colon, Kiyoshi decided to make himself known by drawing manga despite his mother's insistence not to. As a child, he was influenced by The Divine Comedy (which would serve as the inspiration for Demon Lord Dante and by later extension Devilman) and the works of Osamu Tezuka. Kiyoshi was born as the fourth son to Yoshio and Fujiko Nagai.