Gosho Aoyama
Gosho Aoyama (青山剛昌, Aoyama Gōshō?) born as Yoshimasa Aoyama (青山剛昌, Aoyama Yoshimasa?), born on June 21, 1963 in Hokuei, Tottori Prefecture Japan (formerly Daiei Tottori Prefecture) is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for the Detective Conan (名探偵コナン) series known in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom as “Case Closed”.
Background
Gosho’s home is located in front of the Daiei Town Plaza where his home owns a Bike Repair shop and a Grocery store.
When Gosho Aoyama was in Grade 1 in elementary school his painting of “Yukiai War” won a competition and was displayed at the Tottori Daimaru Department Store, which known is that Gosho Aoyama was a talented drawer evenly at a young age.
In his youth, Gosho and his friends where more like the Detective Boys back then and describes himself as the Mitsuhiko type of his group. Gosho Aoyama was still drawing Nyarome (ニャロメ, Nyarome?) a character that is created by Akatsuka Fujio one of the creators of Doraemon. Gosho bough his first manga named “Ore wa Teppei” (おれは鉄兵) by Tetsuya Chiba which he liked the manga series a lot, and thus made him to join the kendō club.
Gosho had to read manga secretly because his parents where strict told him that “Nothing good can come out of reading manga” so during his junior high school years, he had to read manga secretly which makes Gosho almost giving up his dream and decided to become a art teacher instead and enrolled in Nihon University College of Art. There, Gosho joined the Manga Studies Club where he met the club’s alumnus, manga artist Yutaka Abe. The start for Gosho Aoyama was when Abe ask Gosho if he wanted to draw manga for real. In winter of 1986, Aoyama joined a comic contest for freshmen students. He won the contest, and it became a stepping-stone for his career as a manga artist and author, as well as a turning point for his life.
Manga Career Background
Gosho Aoyama brought his first work named The Casual Lupin (さりげなくルパン, Sarigenaku Rupan?) to the magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine which received a Honorable mention. However, later on the new editor-in-chief Nouchi said that Gosho’s drawing style doesn’t suit in the magazine, which he brought his work to Weekly Shōnen Sunday which Gosho Aoyama created his third-piece of work Chotto Matte (ちょっとまって) which was selected for the Shogakukan Newcomers Award in 1986. That was the time that he finally managed to debut.
Gosho Aoyama finally debuted Magic Kaitō (まじっく快斗, Majikku Kaitō?) in 1987 which has been published in the same magazine. Gosho’s editor heavily criticized the series saying that the mechanisms and romantic-comedy elements will be popular among adults and young girls but not among young boys. Which he originally cancelled the series and went working on Yaiba, but later continued the series and evenly have a collaboration with the Detective Conan series.
In 1988, Gosho created Yaiba known as Legend of the Swordmaster Yaiba Yaiba (剣勇伝説YAIBA, Ken’yū Densetsu Yaiba?) after the the hiatus of Magic Kaitō. The series became popular among young boys which the manga received in 1992 in the category shōnen the Shogakukan Manga Award. Yaiba ended in 1993 which has released 24-tankōbon volumes and 12-waidoban versions. Yaiba also was a 52-episodes TV Anime series aired from 9 April 1993 until 1 April 1994.
Gosho Aoyama then created short stories, which a initial meaning that he would put the series Third Baseman No.4 in volumes.
Gosho Aoyama then finally created “Detective Conan” in 1994. The series became very popular in many categories. Gosho never tough that the series would be “that” long saying that he tough that the series would only last for three months. His editor wanted to have the title Detective Conan changed into Detective Doyle due to the Future Boy Conan series, but Gosho Aoyama was so stuck with the name Conan and believed that the series would take over the Future Boy Conan series. The manga series has been adapted into a ongoing anime since 1996 and 16 theater films, video games and many more. In 2001, the manga was awarded 46th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category.
Personal Life
Gosho Aoyama was born by strict parents and has two younger brothers. one who’s an engineer and another who’s a doctor. The engineer helps Aoyama with tricks related to cars, and the doctor helps Aoyama with medicine-related topics, like APTX. The doctor is also an anime otaku who advises Aoyama about which voice actor should voice whom.
On May 5, 2005, he was married to Minami Takayama, a singer and voice actress who gave the voice of Conan in the original Japanese anime adaptation of Aoyama’s Detective Conan. On December 10, 2007, the two were divorced.
Aoyama created plot lines for the murder cases of the popular Japanese idol group AKB48, which the illustrations comes from Masaki Gotō in the AKB48 manga mini-series called: “AKB48 Murder Case” that is published in the same magazine of Gosho Aoyama’s, Detective Conan published in.
Drawing Style
Gosho Aoyama drawing style drastically over the years as being a manga artist. His drawing style could be compared back then as “being a Shōjo type” or “not fitted for a Shōnen Magazine”. Aoyama’s art back then was somehow what sloppy or little bit messy but managed to keep up with his will of art. It is known that Gosho probably drawn his former series in loose lines, while later he stated that he is using long lines to make his art fine.
Gosho stated that he uses realistic animals, locations, trees and cars. He got them from books which he copies them over and later drawn it himself which it looks more realistic. Gosho Aoyama’s coloring art is also great. It is unknown how he’s coloring his characters in the manga, but it is known how he colors them in when he is creating characters from real life. He uses short lines to color in and evenly when he is creating a poster for a new film from his series. Standard in Gosho Aoyama’s drawing is the ears of the characters and the eyes, which is colored blue with a black pupil and in the mid a shining horizontal line and most popular the nose of each character which only the underside of the nose is seen instead of the whole only by adults the line has been seen. Gosho Aoyama also did the character designs of the popular children anime series Hamtaro.
Assistants
-
Eiichi Yamagishi
(
山岸 栄一
,
Yamagishi Eiichi
?
)
-
Yutaka Abe
(
阿部 ゆたか
,
Abe Yutaka
?
)
-
Denjiro Maru
(
丸 伝次郎
,
Maru Denjirō
?
)
-
Masaru Ohta
(
太田 勝
,
Ōta Masaru
?
)
-
Kazuhiro Kubota
(
窪田 一裕
,
Kubota Kazuhiro
?
)
Manga Works
- Chotto Matte (1987)
- Chotto Matte
(
ちょっとまって
) – It was Gosho Aoyama first manga story published by Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It tells the story of a boy genius named Yutaka Takai, whose time machine jetpack sends his love interest through time for two years.
-
Magic Kaitō
(1987 – ongoing)
- Magic Kaitō
(
まじっく快斗
,
Majikku Kaitō
?
) – It is the original first manga series that has ever been published in volumes. It contains the story about Kaito Kuroba the son of the famous magician
Tōichi Kuroba
also known as
Kaitō Kid
. His father died in a accident and kept this a secret from Kaito. When Kaito discovered his hideout, he took over the role as Kaitō Kid. The first two volumes of the manga series were released in 1988, the third in 1994, and the fourth in February 2007. Although the manga series is on hold, Kaitou Kid still appears regularly in Detective Conan, another manga series by Aoyama. In 2011, Volume 1 until Volume 4 of the manga series went into a shinsōban release which Volume 4 was included with a DVD.
- Yaiba (1988 – 1993)
- Yaiba also known as Ken’yū Densetsu Yaiba
(
剣勇伝説YAIBA
) – The story contains a young samurai Yaiba Kurogane. It has been collected in 24-tankōbon volumes. The manga series was later adapted into a 52-episode TV Anime series.
- 3rd Base 4th (1993)
- 3rd Base 4th
(
4番サード
,
Yonban Sādo
?
) – Is a one-volume manga series containing the stories of Shigeo Nagashima, a mediocre baseball player on his high school team. One day he buys a magical bat from a sporting goods store which allows him to hit every pitch, but unfortunately, he has to pay the mysterious store for each pitch he hits.
- Nonchalant Lupin
(
さりげなくルパン
,
Sarigenaku Rupan
?
) – It is the original one-shot stories of Gosho Aoyama, also the same one-shot that he has showed to the Weekly Shōnen Magazine. The one-shot goes about a high school student Kaito Lupin and his best friend Aoko Holmes. This story was the prototype for Gosho Aoyama’s Magic Kaito manga series.
- Nonchalant Lupin
- Gosho Aoyama’s Collection of Short Stories (1994, 2011Shinsōban version)
- Gosho Aoyama’s Collection of Short Stories
(
青山剛昌短編集
,
Aoyama Gōshō Tanpenshū
?
) – Is a collection of short stories that Gosho created over the years of being a manga artist. Some of the short stories containing in the book has been animated.
- Play It Again
(
プレイ イット アゲイン
,
Purei Itto Agein
?
) – It was the prototype for the series Yaiba. The story contains Sanjūrō Tsurugi the grandfather of Michiko Tsurugi which turns out young again after losing a match of her which was false play when he was wishing under his Sakura tree which he has planted when he was young, to be young again. When Sanjūrō discovered that he turned out to be young again, he is in shock, he evenly also overhears Nakadai from the kendo club talking to his friends about taking advantage of Michiko as his next target. Can Sanjūrō protect his granddaughter from the lecherous Nakadai?
- Excalibur
(
えくすかりばぁ
,
Ekusukaribaa
?
) – Is a prototype for the 3rd Base 4th. It contains Minae member of the baseball team “Guts” a horrible baseball team but wins after the team found a magical baseball bat.
- Natsu no Santa Claus
(
夏のサンタクロース
) – Keisuke Hara has been dumped by his girlfriend who ask him not to call her anymore. Keisuke who is depressed was riding on his motorcycle and crashes into two gentlemen which one of them has a gun. During the accident, Gray accidentally grabs Keisuke’s telephone card by mistake, thinking it’s his own card, while Keisuke ends up grabbing the other card. Gray accidentally leaves behind edible alcoholic capsules which Keisuke mistakenly eats because he’s hungry. It isn’t until later that Gray discovers Keisuke grabbed his card, which is the activation key for a weaponized satellite system. A drunk Keisuke is calling his ex-girlfriend but not knowing that he activated the weaponized satellite system and evenly made it’s target on earth.
- Chotto Matte
(
ちょっとまって
) – It was Gosho Aoyama first manga story published by Weekly Shōnen Sunday. It tells the story of a boy genius named Yutaka Takai, whose time machine jetpack sends his love interest through time for two years.
- Detective George’s Mini-Mini Big Strategy
(
探偵ジョージのミニミニ大作戦
,
Tantei Jōji no Minimini Daisakusen
?
) – Contains the adventures of the super small private detective George Kirishima and his young secretary Asami Ashikawa. George can solve many cases that he gets evenly on the small size of his.
- The Wandering Red Butterfly
(
さまよえる赤い蝶
,
Samayoeru Akai Chō
?
) – The story contains about a private detective named: Yūsaku Kitakata and a mysterious woman who refer herself to be called as The Wandering Red Butterfly who gives him a cryptic message through a phone-call. The series was also in a anime, which the two main characters where been replaced by
Yukiko Kudō
and
Yūsaku Kudō
.
- Tell Me A Lie
(
〜私にウソをついて〜
,
~Watashi ni Uso wo Tsuite~
?
) – The story tells about a girl named Terumi Arai that can read peoples mind only looking them right in the eye.
- Play It Again
- Detective Conan (1994 – ongoing)
- Detective Conan
(
名探偵コナン
,
Meitantei Konan
?
) – The story goes about a teenage detective named
Shinichi Kudō
that turned into a kid after a poison that meant to kill him which given himself the pseudonymous Conan Edogawa. As Conan he tries to figure out the ones who gave him the poison to get the antidote to get his real body back. The manga series became very popular in Japan which already over 800 chapters and 70 volumes, Detective Conan became one of the longest series that is still published. In 1996 the manga series has been adopted into anime, which is currently still ongoing and already has over 10 movies.
Awards and recognition
Gosho Aoyama won two manga awards at his time as manga artist. Aoyama won the Shogakukan Manga Award in the category shōnen for Yaiba in 1992 and won the second time for Detective Conan in 2001.
His hometown Hokuei has done several machi okoshi (町おこし) projects in honor of his contribution as a manga artist and resident of the town. The first project was a Conan Bridge across the Yura River and the Conan bronze statues in various locations in the town, which both pay tribute to Gosho Aoyama’s popular character from Detective Conan — Conan Edogawa. But here where also later bronze statues placed of Shinichi Kudō, Ran Mōri, the Detective Boys and evenly tiling containing Conan Edogawa’s face. On March 18, 2007, the Gosho Aoyama Manga Factory was open in the same town to celebrate Gosho Aoyama’s career as a manga artist.
Trivia
- Gosho was formerly an assistant of Yutaka Abe during high school which Abe became Gosho’s assistant.
- On May 5, 2005, he was married to Minami Takayama, a singer and voice actress who gave the voice of Conan in the original Japanese anime adaptation of Aoyama’s Detective Conan. On December 10, 2007, the two were divorced.
- Gosho Aoyama personal status:
- Gosho Aoyama’s blood type is B.
- Gosho Aoyama’s height is 1.74 cm.
- Gosho Aoyama’s favorite phrase is Bārō
(
バーロー
).
- Gosho Aoyama hates beans and raisins and is a big fan of the Giants and curry rice.
- Aoyama uses 05, .1, and .8 pens when he is about to ink his series.
- Gosho Aoyama’s first ideal was to get his works published by Weekly Shōnen Magazine but got rejected due to his drawing style.
- Gosho Aoyama has friends that works by the police which he can gather information about the daily life at the policy department, evenly got inspectors and detectives as friends. His brother is a doctor, which cases that contains medical affairs in the series, the information he got from his brother.
- He married Minami Takayama on her birthday, but divorced several years later.
- When Gosho was a kid, he and his friends could be compared as same as the Detective Boys. He said that he was more a
Mitsuhiko
type due that he played the role of looking for supplies and places, and set a junkyard of a body shop in his hometown as their secret base.
- Gosho’s first manga that he bought was “Ore wa Teppei”
(
おれは鉄兵
) which he liked a lot, and thus made him to join the kendō club.