Buichi Terasawa (寺沢 武一 1955 – 2023) was a Japanese manga artist, most well known for his comic titles like Goku Midnight Eye, Cobra and TAKERU, the latter reportedly been the first digitally colored manga ever released. Cobra was apparently a very big hit especially in France, with The Fifth Element director Luc Besson been a big fan.
As a teenager growing up in Singapore during the 90s, where media censorship, in particular adult nudity was particularly strict, Buchi Terasawa’s manga were some of my very first exposure to the more adult and sexy portrayal of women in comics; they were often times scantily clad but not outright nude, thus skirting the censorship laws, if only barely.
This soft cover volume collects a splendid collection of some of his best illustrations from his manga, both colored and B&W. His impressionable character designs with their rather outlandish and vibrant costumes certainly made an impact on my as a teenager, and looking and these illustrations is so delightfully nostalgic.
Buichi Terasawa passed away in 2023, and this soft cover art book ( which resembles more of a periodical type magazine publication that requires shorter editorial turn-around ) seems to be a speedy effort on the part of the publishers to showcase his work. Given the popularity of Buichi Terasawa’s manga and his influence, both in Japan and internationally, I believe a retrospective art exhibition will likely be forthcoming in the near future, and with that possibly an even bigger and more in-depth/scholarly art book.
That said, this particular book is replete with Buichi’s excellent art work and is nonetheless a very big bang for your buck at only 11 USD, and I would still highly recommend it.
“The World Of Buichi Terasawa Art Book 寺沢武一の世界 ART WORKS 1955-2023” details :
Dimensions – 0.31 x 8.27 x 11.69 inches
Softcover, 128 pages
Full color, In Japanese language
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April 4th, 2025 at 7:17 pm
Damm didn’t know he passed away, so sad…lways been a huge fan of Cobra and Midnight eye Goku which i still have the both laserdiscs in perfect condition…I wanted to see his retrospective in Osaka but couldn’t make it. Cobra character design was was inspired by the French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo. Cobra was a big hit by itself nothing related to Besson, cobra was part of most Frenches kid favorite during that era, it was on every schoolmate lips especially retail episodes and the vegetarian as French translated it, i was belonging to that golden era manga in France. Dagon ball, hokuto no ken to just name few…Glad to see you posting his book Just hoped it could be thicker…thank you keep the great post coming:-)