NISHIWAKI Nobuhiro
わつきのぶひろ
西脇伸宏
와츠키 노부히로

和月伸宏

Tokyo, Japan

May 26, 1970

Gemini

July 5th 2023, 8:33am

When Watsuki was a young boy, his brother, who was three years older, drew manga. Watsuki’s older brother was his role model so he started drawing Manga as well. Watsuki was also inspired by a variety of early manga artists such as TEZUKA Osamu and Fujiko F. Fujio. Later on, his brother stopped drawing manga but, "Because Mr. Watsuki was dumb, he kept drawing it (manga) for a while.”

When Watsuki was in middle school, he practiced kendo. He grew frustrated with kendo and eventually quit. When he was challenged to come up with a new character for Rurouni Kenshin, he used his outlook on kendo for a base of Myoujin Yahiko.

In high school he took a prize in the Tezuka Award for his one shot “Teacher Pon”. Not much is known about Teacher Pon because it has not been translated to English.

He studied under TSUGIHARA Ryuuji, IMAIZUMI Shinji and TAKAHASHI Yoichi. Watsuki worked as an assistant for UMEZAWA Haruto on Hareluya and also was an assistant for his favorite artist OBATA Takeshi, in the work Rikijin Densetsu and Arabian Majin Boukentan Lamp Lamp. The model for Sagara Sanosuke was based on a version of Lamp.

He had mentored many manga-ka during serialization of Rurouni Kenshin, including ODA Eiichiro, TAKEI Hiroyuki, SHINGA Gin, SUZUKI Shinya, YAMADA Kazushige and ITOU Mikio, which were called Watsuki-gumi (Watsuki’s group) at that time. KAWAGUCHI Yukinori and MICHIMOTO Munenori were also once worked as his assistant.

Watsuki describes himself as "pro-doujinshi" and asks fans to send fan comics. Along with Oda and Takei, he contributed an illustration of "Zaku" for the douujinshi "DRILL GUNDAM" (2000), published by ANZAI Nobuyuki's circle.

He is married to novelist KUROSAKI Kaoru.

When not working on manga, Watsuki enjoys playing video games, reading other manga, and watching television. His favorite American comic book is X-Men because he likes the action, he also influenced by other American comics such as Spider-Man and Spawn. His favorite Anime (other than his own) is Neon Genesis Evangelion. He likes video games like Samurai Spirits and things of that sort. He also enjoys action movies like Die Hard and The Matrix.

Watsuki was charged for possession of child pornography in 2017 and was fined 200,000 yen in February 2018. According to the Public Prosecutors Office, Watsuki possessed multiple DVDs with videos of nude girls in their early teens and other materials. Authorities were searching Watsuki's home as part of a different investigation, which linked him to the purchase of DVDs with child pornography. The Tokyo Metropolitan Police then found the DVDs at Watsuki's office in Tokyo. In his deposition, Watsuki allegedly said that he "liked girls in late elementary school to around the second year of middle school."

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