Otomo grew up a fanatic of American blockbusters, which has influenced his cinematic style throughout his huge career. From the late seventies onwards, Otomo created numerous volumes of anthologies and short stories, which usually ran at 23 pages each. Serialization for Fireball was cancelled, though the premise and themes were later to appear in the Sci-Fi Grand Prix award winning Domu and Akira. Otomo later moved onto directing and creating notable anime like the film adaption of Akira, Memories, and Steamboy. His most recent manga have been the scripting of Mother Sarah and the short story Park released in an issue of Pafu last year.

In 2015, he won the French Angoulême Festival Grand Prix.

KON Satoshi, TAKADERA Akihiko and MORIMURA Shin were his assistants.

Friends with EGUCHI Hisashi, TAMURA Shin & KAMIJO Atsushi.