Born in Fukui, he had always liked to draw, but spending some months recovering from illness is what got him into drawing seriously. Few later he began his career as a mangaka, kickstarted by Wingman and then reassured by Video Girl Ai, which is the series that made him famous.
He has also worked on the character designs for IRIA: Zeiram the Animation (which was based on the movie Zeiram), Tiger & Bunny, GARO: Crimson Moon and Double Decker. Love & Destroy marks his character design debut in video games and Astral Chain his second foray after 10 years.
Katsura's style is very easy to recognize, both in terms of design and then of storytelling. Katsura's stories tend to be not just fanservicy, but very emotion-driven. More than one of his mangas are huge on the "growing up and going into adulthood" aspect, with the charas going through lots of emotional turmoil. i.e.: in Video Girl Ai, the Robot Girl Ai develops feelings for a guy she was just supposed to help, which threatens her own existence; said guy loves her but isn't necessarily in love with her, but then his feelings change and waver. In DNA² we have Junta's Pornomancer powers being jumpstarted all of a sudden and influencing all the girls around him whether for good or not. In I"s, the I Trio (Iori, Ichitaka and Itsuki) have to deal with their own matters as well as their relationships, and it goes on and on.
Katsura has been Vitriolic Best Buds with Akira Toriyama for a long time, too. A Running Gag in his mangas is the presence of this background character "Mr. Mayarito", whose name is an anagram of Toriyama's surname.
Oh, and he also likes Batman. A LOT.
Manga
- Dream Fighter Wingman (1983–1985)
- Super Mobile Troop Vander (1985–1986)
- Video Girl Ai (1989–1992)
- Shadow Lady (1992–1993, 1995–1996)
- DNA² (1993–1994)
- M (1996)
- I"s (1997–1999)
- Zetman (2002–2014)
- Dr Chambalee (2000)
- Sachie-chan Good!! (with Akira Toriyama, 2008)
- Jiya (with Akira Toriyama, 2009-2010)
Masakazu Katsura's mangas contain the following tropes
- Animated Adaptation:
- The OVA version of Video Girl Ai was a favorite of budding American otaku during the 1990s.
- His first manga, Wingman, got a 47-episode TV series courtesy of Toei Animation in 1984, while the manga was still ongoing. It adapted only the first part of the manga with the balance being an original story by the Toei screenwriters. The anime was later syndicated in Europe and proved popular enough in France for the entire manga to get released there, though that took until the early 2010s.
- Art Evolution: Compare Wingman to his later works. In fact, the illness that led Katsura to refine his technique came near the end of Wingman's serialization.
- Author Appeal:
- He draws really, really attractive characters. Not only that, but he gives lots of attention to female character's legs and bottoms. And his males aren't anything to sneeze at, either.
- His love for Batman can be seen in multiple of his mangas, usually in the form of a Batman movie.
- Costume Porn: His characters, whether male or female, dress up in pretty nice clothing, some of them going into Iconic Outfit territory like Ai's Video Girl outfit or Karin Aoi's jumpsuit/armor combination.
- Dub Name Change: The lead characters' names were all changed when the Wingman anime reached France: Kenta became David, Aoi Yume was known as Elise, and Miku was changed to Sophie.
- Earn Your Happy Ending: It's not very easy for his characters to achieve their goal and be happy. Even when the goal has been reached, Katsura likes to show what happens after this high-point, and the characters need to work to keep things going well.
- Male Gaze: Several of his manga have panels dedicated to a woman's bosom, butt or shapely legs.
