Naoki Urasawa does not plan his stories, preferring to let them surprise him

Ideas & Philosophy · Published 3 October 2026 Swipe more like this →

In short: Widely considered one of the greatest storytellers of our time, Naoki Urasawa crafts complex, cinematic manga without pre-planning his plots. Instead, he visualizes a movie trailer for each project, letting the narrative dictate its own path. This instinctual approach has produced over 140 million copies of his work worldwide.

Born in 1960, Naoki Urasawa began drawing at age four and completed his first full story by eight. Despite his early talent, he initially pursued a degree in economics at Meisei University, skeptical of the commercialized nature of the manga industry. His career path shifted in 1982 when he won the New Manga Artist Award for his unpublished work, Return. This success led him to a professional debut in 1983 with Beta!, marking the start of a prolific career defined by simultaneous serializations and a relentless work ethic.

Urasawa’s creative process is uniquely improvisational. He describes his storytelling as akin to breathing, where he avoids rigid outlines in favor of following his instincts. When starting a project, he constructs a mental trailer that generates enough excitement to drive the first chapter. He insists that if a story fails to surprise him, he cannot continue writing it. This method has yielded acclaimed works such as Monster, 20th Century Boys, and Pluto, the latter being a re-imagining of Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy. His collaboration with longtime editor Takashi Nagasaki is central to his output, though the two maintain a strictly professional relationship.

Beyond his manga, Urasawa is an accomplished musician who views the two mediums as intertwined. He has released three albums, including Hanseiki no Otoko and Love Songs, and hosts the documentary series Urasawa Naoki no Manben, which explores the techniques of fellow artists. His influence is profound; filmmaker Bong Joon-ho has called him the greatest storyteller of our time, and writer Junot Díaz has labeled him a national treasure. Whether through his cinematic panel layouts or his refusal to cater to market trends, Urasawa remains a singular figure who continues to shape the history of manga through his ongoing series, Asadora!.

General information, not professional advice. Spotted an error? Flag the card or see corrections and complaints.

Intellect Plus is a visual educational discovery platform for exploring fascinating facts and ideas. Brain Food, Not Brain Rot. What is Intellect Plus?

Related

• How a teenage ambition to avoid a real job created a global publishing phenomenon.
• How a childhood fascination with war stories shaped a global manga phenomenon
• A high school student on a remote island discovers the intensity of creating manga.
• How a rejected manga artist became a global icon through JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
• The manga artist who creates romance stories without ever experiencing love
• The man-lion deity who outsmarted a demon by exploiting the fine print of fate
• Was the legendary Indian saint Namdev a tailor, a thief, or a divine mystery?
• The nineteenth-century dandy who became America's first true magazine celebrity
• Why the final Naked Gun film took its title from a vinyl record
• The National Archives holds over 13 billion pages, yet only a fraction is digitized.
• Najaf nearly died of thirst when the Euphrates wandered away
• Can a retired general’s radical new party redefine the Italian political landscape?

More in Writers · More in Ideas & Philosophy · Latest · A–Z · All topics