Early life Go Nagai was born on September 6, 1945 in the
Ishikawa Prefecture city of
Wajima. He is the son of , and the fourth of five brothers. His family had just returned from
Shanghai. While he was still in his early childhood, he along with his mother and his four brothers moved to
Tokyo after the death of his father. He graduated from the Metropolitan
Itabashi High School of Tokyo. As Nagai prepared for the task, he went to the hospital, where he was diagnosed with
catarrh of the colon, and soon healed. But this was the turning point in his life. Despite the fact that his mother opposed his manga aspirations, he submitted his works for publication, accumulating many rejections. However, his work was noticed by
Weekly Shōnen Sunday, which contacted
Shotaro Ishinomori. His professional career began in 1967, despite the opposition of his mother. Almost at the same time, this was followed by the manga adaptation of Tomio Sagisu's TV anime , also published in 1967 in the same magazine. A common misconception is that
Kuro no Shishi ("Black Lion") was his first manga work; while not entirely false, what Nagai really made two years earlier than
Meakashi Polikichi, was only a draft for what would later be
Kuro no Shishi, which would not be actually published until 1978. His first works consisted entirely of short gag comedy manga. This would change with
Harenchi Gakuen.
First success and controversies Less than a year after debuting, he experienced his first big success. After being an unknown manga artist, he was invited to televised debates and journalistic investigations. In 1968, while
Shueisha was getting prepared to launch its first manga publication,
Shōnen Jump, in order to compete with other magazines from rival companies (like
Shōnen Magazine from
Kodansha and
Shōnen Sunday from
Shogakukan), Nagai was invited to be one of the first manga artists publishing in the new magazine. He contemplated this, since he had to design a long-running series instead of the auto-conclusive short stories that he had been developing until that point. and making
Shōnen Jump sell more than one million copies. opened the door to a new era in manga Until
Harenchi Gakuen, Japanese manga had been relatively tame affairs, but things soon changed. A scandalous manga in its time, it is a very innocent series by today's standards. In particular, the PTA protests over
Harenchi Gakuen were notorious. Nagai was bombarded with interview requests from newspapers, magazines and TV. Whenever he flew outside of Tokyo, TV cameras were waiting for him. He was branded a "nuisance" and even an "enemy of society". He, however, had a clear sense of what things he could or could not do with the manga. At first, Nagai did not think that the opposition was against him, since he was aware of the standards that applied with movies and similar things for an audience below 18 years old. At that time, he never drew sex scenes, avoided pictures of genitals and made nudes cute rather than sexy,
Dynamic Productions Thanks to the success of
Harenchi Gakuen, Dynamic Productions (, also known as Dynamic Production or Dynamic Pro, ), was founded by Go Nagai with his brothers in April 1969. Meant to be a group to help him with his works, as a consequence
Harenchi Gakuen, where he derived almost no royalties from the TV series, films, or related merchandise, Dynamic Productions became a company established to manage Nagai's relations and contractual rights of his work. Dynamic became one of the first companies to require publishers sign contracts (even today many manga are created and published only on the basis of verbal agreements).
Style and works In his series Nagai used eroticism and extreme, graphic violence in kid's manga for the first time in Japan, thus breaking
taboos and becoming quite controversial. The concepts were initially conceived for the TV series, which would be directed at elementary school age children, and were altered for the manga, which would be published in a magazine with teenage readers. This allowed Nagai to include violence, nudity, and darker themes closer to the content of
Demon Lord Dante. Go Nagai considers the
Devilman and
Mazinger series to be his life's work due to their massive popularity all over the world. In 1972, Nagai managed the very difficult feat of both drawing and writing five weekly manga publications at the same time, an accomplishment only equalled by other manga artists
Shinji Mizushima and
George Akiyama. A month later after finishing
Devilman, Nagai would create a sequel to it called , another long-running series that spanned multiple volumes and dealt with a giant brute of a man fighting for justice in a post-
apocalyptic setting where Japan has been devastated by a massive earthquake and isolated from the rest of the world. Years later Nagai revamped
Devilman featuring versions of the protagonists as young adult women and altering the storyline, which eventually became another sequel story to the original. This series is called . It was first released as a manga and later animated with some changes. One of Nagai's most popular works outside of his fanbase has been
Cutey Honey, considered to be a major influence on future
magical girl (in particular
Sailor Moon). Nagai had less success a few years later with
Majokko Tickle, a more traditional magical-girl series for younger children, although the accompanying anime was popular on TV in some
European countries. In 1980, he received the 4th
Kodansha Manga Award for for
Susano OH. Nagai has worked with Shotaro Ishinomori and
Ken Ishikawa. He is currently being more prolific in manga production than ever. Much of Nagai's work has been adapted into
anime and . Nagai has made cameo appearances in some live-action films, including
The Toxic Avenger Part II, the
Cutie Honey 2004 live action film, and in a special DVD-only episode of
Cutie Honey: The Live as Dr. Koshiro Kisaragi. ==Assistants==