Biography | Osamu Kanno

At the age of 18 yo, Osamu Kanno (1953-) moved from the very small village of Nishine to the big city of Tokyo! His initial intent was to become an artist/painter but after discovering the works of Sanpei Shirato and especially Yoshiharu Tsuge, he chose a career in manga.
Yoshiharu Tsuge was in a sense his mentor, greatest influence and biggest inspiration and this is very visible in the 'Garo' works of Osamu Kanno.
Osamu Kanno made his debut with "Melancholy Death" in the manga magazine 'Yakou' (夜行) [Night Train] which was founded by Takano Shinzo (a former editor of Garo) mainly for the purpose of relating to Yoshiharu Tsuge. His 'Garo' debut (June, 1973), 'Starry Night Story' followed just a couple of months later and put him in between the (now) greats and made him a Garo-kei !

Osamu Kannu was one of the Garo crowd that could pin down his readers with awkward yet beautifully wordless art and when the words finally appeared they would create an inexplicable emotional connection and leave us puzzled!
“I don’t know whether the man who first saw an elephant was overwhelmed by its immense size, or if he was worried for his family.” (The Man Who Saw an Elephant, Kitafuyu Shobo, 1986)

If there was to be a definite definition of Garo-kei art then maybe the art of Osamu Kanno should be used to demonstrate this definition. His art is one long sequence of mixed media using not only pencils and ink but also brush painting, spray painting, collage (newspaper and magazine clippings of life in Japan) and traditional Japanese calligraphy !

Besides his work in manga, he also worked as an illustrator and designer for posters, book covers and such. His unique 'Garo-kei' style has left him with many fans outside the manga world and not just in Japan.

When Garo ceased to be, Kanno's work eventually found its way to AX, the de facto successor to the legendary manga magazine. But Kanno is so much more and there's a lot still to be discovered. His anthologies, essays, features and collections published by 'Kitafuyu Shobo' hardly scratch the surface of what he created throughout 5 decades !

His most recent endeavour is a four-panel, satirical manga called 'Bearded man' which is published in the Morioka Times (2017-now) and is now being published as a doujinshi.