Although Taiyo Matsumoto desired a career as a professional soccerplayer at first, he eventually chose an artistic profession. He gained his first success through the Comic Open contest, held by the magazine Comic Morning, which allowed him to make his professional debut. He started out with 'Straight', a comic about basketball players. Sports remain his main influence in his next comic, 'Zéro', a story about a boxer.
In 1993 Matsumoto started the 'Tekkonkinkurito' trilogy in Big Spirits magazine, which was even adapted to a theatre play. He continued his comics exploits with several short stories for the Comic Aré magazine, which are collected in the book 'Nihon no Kyodai'. Again for Big Spirits, Taiyo Matsumoto started the series 'Ping Pong' in 1996. 'Number Five' followed in 2001, published by Shogakukan.
I finally got to the story's full wavelength with this last volume, and came to enjoy its lessons and meanings and character growth without reservation. That's at least half a star more, maybe a full one.
Hmm, I didn't like this one as much. This felt like I was playing Kingdom Hearts - the common thread between this book and the game is Moebius. The Minotaur... Black goes edgelord mode. Kills a monk by ramming a pointed stick through the back of his head so that it goes through the skull and out the mouth. Brutal. Edgy. Darkness. Kingdom Hearts. The heart of darkness. Darkkkk. Night Mode Activated. IDK. White and Black leave the city and live on the sea. I liked that.
i really liked these books! the art is excellent and some skillful combination of dialogue and scenery and action kept me reading it more slowly and carefully than most other action street-crime type comics.