Yasuo Ohtagaki On Creating The Jazz Infused Retro Future Of 'Gundam Thunderbolt'

One of the big breakout manga hits of the past five years or so is definitely Yasuo Ohtagaki's grittier take on the original Mobile Suit Gundam. Set as a sidestory to the main conflict, Gundam Thunderbolt is a fascinating and very different approach to the saga. I was lucky enough to catch up with its author and find out how the manga came about. Considering the huge success of Gundam Thunderbolt, I was curious as to how Ohtagaki had gotten into making manga in the first place. Thankfully, he was more than happy to explain, "I am from Osaka originally and I've really enjoyed manga since I was a child. My father used to buy two volumes of the latest release, although at that time there were already 30 volumes on the market. He would buy the volumes like souvenirs and I would look forward to them. This is how I got into Dokaben and the first thing I copied was the art of Dokaben. I liked manga for a long time but when I was in high school, the romantic comedy boom arrived. I started to look at Akira Oze sensei's work, as he was at the time drawing romantic comedy manga. I realized then that I wanted to create manga like Oze sensei. "At the time when I was drawing manga, there was the romantic comedy boom and I liked this type of manga, the kind where a boy and girl flirt.