Baron Yoshimoto arrived at Lucca Comics & Games 2024 directly from Japan, with a cowboy shirt and an impeccable hairdo. Ha 83 years old and it does not show them. He started in the world of manga in 1959, and quickly became one of the most influential representatives of the genre. gekiga: comics aimed instead at adult readers and young workers with dramatic, noir, realistic stories, full of eros, violence and sadness. In Lucca, the manga sensei left his mark (literally) on the Walk of Fame in the largest Italian event dedicated to comics and manga.
Yoshimoto arrived in Italy this year (for the first time since his trip in the 1970s) with Coconino Press with a work that we haven’t published for a long time, but is so popular in Japan that it has created a saga of more than 9 thousand comic pages: The legends of Judoa story that follows several generations of a family of judokas, whose lives, loves and endeavors are intertwined in Japanese history from the Meiji period (1868-1912) to the 1970s.
“I am working The legends of Judo for more than 10 years, and among my manga this is the one I’ve been with the most“. This is what Baron Yoshimoto said when meeting the press at Lucca Comics & Games, which also goes back to the beginning of his own amazing career: “Start working as a mangaka it was not easyat a time when it was not a widespread or accepted profession. But I feel like it’s a life mission, and I’m lucky because I’ve met some editors who understand my needs, and let me continue my style.“.
Yoshimoto’s stories are powerful rooted of Japan, describing its peculiarities, vices, defects and virtues, and sketching portraits of unique characters (such as “judo masters”) as well as common people who find themselves for one reason or another on the fringes of society and live abnormal experiences, such as the anthology Seventeen **(J-Pop editions). It is surprising, then, to discover the breadth of sources of inspiration from which the mangaka has drawn over the course of his decades-long career. “I spent some time in the United States, where I read American comics, and I was taken to many films of the western genre”. A trend that can still be seen in the author’s clothing, as he himself lined up by showing himself suits sheriff style. “I also love the western macaroni Italian [così sono noti in Giappone gli spaghetti western, ndR]; but also Italian neorealism, like Bicycle thieveswhich is very popular in Japan. I like Giuliano Gemma, Franco Nero, Gian Maria Volonté. And most of all – the maestro laughed – I like it Claudia Cardinale“.