Kentarou Miura

Kentarou Miura
Traits	54 years old (born July 11, 1966), black hair, brown eyes; left-handed
Highlights	Attended Nihon University Has written Berserk for 35 years Won the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2002

Kentarou Miura is a mangaka and the author of Berserk, on which this wiki project is based. He made his debut in 1976 with his first short series Miuranger, and began his professional career with the short series Ken e No Michi, Futanabi, and Noa.

Biography

In 1976, at the age of 10, Miura created his first manga titled Miuranger for his class mates, and appeared in some of his school’s publications. As time progressed, Miuranger ended up finishing at around 40 volumes. After this Miura began work on Ken e No Michi (The Way Of The Sword) - his first work drawn using Indian ink. In 1979 while still in Middle School Miura began using rasters for his work, and trained himself to use professional drawing methods.

In 1982, he enrolled in an artistic curriculum in high school, where together with his friends they had their work published in school booklets, as well as having his first dojinshi published in a fan produced magazine.

In 1985, Miura was accepted onto an art course at Niho Daigaku University. He started two more works during this time: Futanabi and Noa - which may have been the work he showed to gain entry to the University in the first place. Futanabi and Noa were also submitted to the Shonen magazine, the magazine awarding Miura a prize for the best new author for Futanabi, and they actually published Noa in their magazine towards the end of that year. However the publications were short lived; Miura had a difference of opinion with one of the editors, and no further work was published.

In 1988 came the first appearance of Berserk in the form of a 48-page manga now known as Berserk: The Prototype. The prototype resembles a preview of the actual manga, save for some key differences. It won Miura a prize from the Comi Manga School.

Miura at work.

Having finished his course and receiving his doctorate in 1989 he began another work called Ourou (King of Wolves) which is based on a script by Yoshiyuki "Buronson" Okamura, manga writer of Fist of the North Star fame. Ourou was published in the monthly Japanese Animal House magazine in issues 5 and 7 of that year. The 10th issue of Animal House that year saw the first ever, and only publication for that year of Miura's solo work Berserk. The year ending with Ourou being released as a stand alone manga volume. From the 2nd to the 6th issues of Animal House in 1990, a follow up to Ourou was published. Entitled Ourou Den (Legend of the Wolf King), it too is based on a script by Okamura. Ourou Den received a stand alone volume release that same year. The first volume of Berserk was also released this same year, however it had limited success. It wasn't until the release of the Golden Age Arc that Berserk finally found popularity and success.

Another joint effort between Miura and Okamura in the 1992 work Japan, appearing in issues 1 to 8 of Animal House for that year, again with stand alone manga volumes following later in the year. At the end of this year, Miura decided to dedicate himself solely to working on Berserk.

1997 saw the release of various art books and supplements by Miura based on Berserk, as well as Miura overseeing the production of a 25 episode animated series to be aired on Nihon TV in Japan. Since then, the manga has made its way to 39 released volumes, as well as having picked up a cultural award for Miura in 2002, earning him over one million yen.^{[citation needed]} The series has also spawned a whole host of merchandise, both official and fan made, ranging from statues, action figures, video games, and a trading card game.

In 2013, Miura wrote and illustrated Gigantomakhia, a six chapter mini-series before resuming work on Berserk.

Style and Influences

Miura's influence comes from works in different media. The manga artist Go Nagai had a key element in developing Miura's style. Miura has also cited Susumu Hirasawa's music as inspiration.

Works

• Miuranger (1976)
• Ken e no Michi (1977)
• Futatabi (1985)
• Noa (1985)
• Berserk: The Prototype (1988)
• King of Wolves (1989)
• Berserk (1989–present)
• Ourou Den (1990)
• Japan (1992)
• Gigantomakhia (2013)
• Duranki (executive producer, starting 2019)

Gallery

Miura (left) with Takehiko Inoue (right) at the 2002 Osamu Tezuka Cultural Prize

See Also

• Interviews with Kentarou Miura