Leiji Matsumoto (松本 零士 Matsumoto Reiji) is a well-known creator of several anime and manga series.
Matsumoto possesses a masterful ability to create space opera. His style is characterized by tragic heroes; tall, slender, fragile-looking heroines with strong wills; and a love of analog gauges and dials in his spacecraft. Those prominent gauges and dials are affectionally called "松本ゲージ" (Matsumoto Geji, lit. Gauges of Matsumoto) by his fans.
Matsumoto first gained prominence shortly after World War II by drawing manga dealing with war themes. In 1972 he created the character Captain Harlock in an anime series which ran for 42 episodes. He has since set numerous anime series in this universe, including Galaxy Express 999, Queen Emeraldas and Cosmo Warrior Zero . This shared universe is often called the Leijiverse or the Matsumoto Milieu.
Matsumoto also supervised the creation of several music videos for the techno music group Daft Punk, set to tracks from their album "Discovery." These videos were issued end-to-end (making a full-length animated movie) on a DVD release entitled Daft Punk & Leiji Matsumoto's Interstella 5555: The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem.
Leiji Matsumoto is also often credited as the creator of Space Battleship Yamato, known outside Japan as Star Blazers. In truth, he was brought onto the project after its conception by producer Yoshinobu Nishizaki , but it is now generally agreed that Matsumoto's artistic vision and direction is the primary reason why Yamato was such a memorable success. Matsumoto created a manga loosely based on the series, and the Yamato makes cameo appearances (sans crew) in several of his works including the Galaxy Express 999 manga. A recent work by Matsumoto called Great Yamato featuring an updated Yamato had to be renamed Great Galaxy due to the legal issues with Nishizaki. As of this writing both Matsumoto and Nishizaki are working on independent anime projects featuring the acclaimed Space Battleship Yamato, with the conditions that Matsumoto cannot use the name Yamato or the plot or characters from the original and Nishizaki cannot use the conceptual art, character or ship designs of the original.
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