Taiyō Matsumoto

Taiyō Matsumoto (Japanese: 松本大洋, Hepburn: Matsumoto Taiyō, born October 25, 1967) is a manga artist from Tokyo. He made his debut in Afternoon, Kodansha's monthly seinen manga magazine, but is known for his works with Kodansha's rival publisher Shogakukan, including Tekkonkinkreet, Ping Pong and Number Five. He has received critical praise for his unconventional and often surrealist art style. Ping Pong and Blue Spring have been adapted into live-action feature films. Animation studio Studio 4°C adapted Tekkonkinkreet into an animated feature film. In 2007 he received an Excellence Award for manga at the Japan Media Arts Festival for the art of Takemitsu Zamurai. He is the cousin of Santa Inoue, another manga artist.

Matsumoto originally wanted to be a soccer player, but changed to artist as an occupation instead. After his initial success in the Comic Open contest, he began touring France in 1986, an event that became a significant point in his career. The manga he produced covers a variety of topics, from sports to family comedies to science fiction epics.

In 1993, he began work on the Tekkonkinkreet manga, which became a success in the Big Spirits magazine, and published a series of short stories in a collection called Nihon no Kyodai that was publicized at the time by Comic Aré magazine. Ping Pong appeared in Big Spirits in 1996, soon followed by the series No. 5 in the Shogakukan magazine in 2001.

The Tekkonkinkreet anime was released in Japan in late 2006, and both the anime and manga have been published in English.