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Biography
Japanese

Yoshikazu Yasuhiko

1947

Japanese animator, manga artist, and character designer who was the original character designer and animation director for Mobile Suit Gundam (1979), the mecha anime series that transformed the giant robot genre and launched one of the most commercially successful media franchises in Japan. His manga adaptation, Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2001–2011), is a critically acclaimed retelling that expanded and deepened the original story.

Past sales0
PeriodContemporary
NationalityJapanese
1. Biography

A short life of the author

Yoshikazu Yasuhiko (born 1947 in Hokkaido) is a Japanese animator and manga artist best known for his foundational work on the Mobile Suit Gundam franchise. As character designer and animation director for the original Mobile Suit Gundam television series (1979), he helped create one of the defining works of the mecha anime genre — a show that treated giant robot warfare as serious military science fiction rather than children’s entertainment.

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin

Mobile Suit Gundam: The Origin (2001–2011, 23 volumes) is Yasuhiko’s manga retelling of the original Gundam story, expanding the narrative, deepening character motivations, and adding new episodes (particularly the backstory of the antagonist Char Aznable). The Origin is considered a masterwork of the mecha manga genre and was adapted into a series of anime films.

Yasuhiko has also created historical manga, including Joan (about Joan of Arc) and Okubo Toshimichi (about the Meiji statesman).

Collecting Yasuhiko

Japanese-language first-edition tankōbon of Gundam: The Origin are collected by Gundam enthusiasts. The English-language hardcover edition (Vertical, 12 volumes) is the standard Western collectible. Art books and animation cels from the original 1979 series are valuable in the anime memorabilia market.