Osamu Tezuka
Qualified as a physician, chose manga; roughly 150,000 pages later they called him its god.
- Born
- 1928 · Toyonaka, Osaka, Japan
- Roots
- Japanese
- Family
- Middle class
- A cultured household — his father screened Disney and Chaplin films at home; his mother took him to the Takarazuka theater.
- Education
- Osaka University (medical degree; licensed but never practiced)
- Started with
- A home film projector
- His father's screenings and wartime sketchbooks; he chose manga over medicine on his mother's advice.
- Affiliations & societies
- None documented.
- Information only — claims like these are often unverifiable and may be wrong.
The pathway
- 1945 · age 16War
Works in an arms factory and witnesses the firebombing of Osaka — later the moral core of his work.
- 1947 · age 18New Treasure Island
The cinematic page layouts sell hundreds of thousands of copies and reshape manga.
- 1952 · age 23Astro Boy
A robot boy with a human heart; medicine is finished, but never practiced.
- 1963 · age 34TV anime
His Mushi Production turns Astro Boy into Japan's first weekly animated series — at famously ruinous per-episode prices.
- 1973 · age 44Black Jack
An unlicensed surgeon — the medical degree finally used on paper.
- 1989 · age 60Dies still drawing
His reported last words: "I'm begging you, let me work."
Sources
Compiled from these references and contemporaneous press reporting. Figures are approximate; verify before relying on them.