Draws manga the same way Goya painted family portraits.
Mohiro Kitoh (born August 8, 1966) is a mangaka best known for Shadow Star and Bokurano, both of which have been adapted into anime series. Before those, he also wrote the two-volume manga Wings of Vendemiaire as well as a number of short stories.
He typically writes in the science-fiction genre, and his work frequently sits on the far end of the cynical side of the scale (though there are exceptions). It frequently involves very disturbing material and abrupt changes in mood. Common themes include the cruelty of humans and the innocence (or loss of, or indeed lack thereof) of children. He is also really fond of mountain bikes and airplanes; in fact, one of his more recent series, Noririn, is about bikes, while another, Hayabusa-chan mo Tondemasu, is about aviation.
When you break apart the kanji for his name, it means "ogre headed teacher." And considering the stuff that he writes...
Compare to Gen Urobuchi, Tappei Nagatsuki, Chuck Palahniuk, and Garth Ennis.
His works include:
- Wings of Vendemiaire
- Neon Genesis Evangelion and Rebuild of Evangelion (Angel design, support: Sachiel, Israfel, Zeruel. Main: 3rd Angel ROE.)
- Shadow Star
- Bokurano
- Ekrano
- Hallucinations from the Womb
- Kare no Satsujin Keikaku (His Murder Plan)
- Owari to Hajimari no Miles
- Noririn
- Nanika Mochigatte Masuka? (Is Their Something Wrong?)
- Devil Survivor 2 (character design)
- Futago no Teikoku
- Sinna 1905
- Kaze no Ou (King of the Wind)
- Hayabusa-Chan no Tondemasu
- Princess's Helmet
He has also served as an illustrator, doing cover art for some of the novels of Natsumi Masataki (a science-fiction writer whose work frequently focuses of aviation and the military).
Tropes present in his works:
- Abusive Parents: Fairly common in his works.
- Alternate History: Sinna 1905 takes place in one, in which Japan is undergoing a civil war. Futago no Teikoku is also set in an alternate history.
- A Mech by Any Other Name: In Sinna 1905, the mechs that the characters use are called "Tomikrots", which is an Ainu word meaning "battle coffin". In the novelization of Bokurano this word is also used for the enemy robots.
- Apocalypse How: Kitoh's manga often depict the world coming to an end. For example:
- In Shadow Star, humanity gets wiped out by Shiina's Shadow Dragon—the Earth itself.
- The main characters' world isn't destroyed in Bokurano, but over a dozen others are, along with their entire universes.
- The oneshot Ekrano takes place in a world that's become covered by ocean and infested with alien life-forms called Kujirani, which the protagonists use ekranoplanes
to fight.
- Anyone Can Die: This is how both Bokurano and Shadow Star end.
- Balkanize Me: Happens to Japan in Sinna 1905
- Black-and-Gray Morality
- Break the Cutie
- Bug War: Ekrano is set in the midst of one, with the "bugs" in question being alien sea monsters.
- Child Soldiers: The pilots in Bokurano are all in their teens or younger. This is treated with all the seriousness it would be in real life.
- The cast of Sinna 1905 are also child soldiers, fighting a civil war in an alternate Japan.
- Cool Bike: Appears incidentally throughout his work, and is the focus of Noririn.
- Cool Plane: Kitoh is very fond of aviation, and detailed depictions of aircraft often appear in his works. His latest manga, Hayabusa-chan mo Tondemasu, is even about a girl who can transform into an airplane.
- Creator Thumbprint: Like Hayao Miyazaki, he is extremely fond of flight, and flight in some form features in a large number of his works. He's nowhere near as idealistic as Miyazaki, though.
- Cut Short: His manga, their anime adaptations, and their translations all have an unfortunate tendency for this to happen to them. Owari to Hajimari no Miles is probably the worst offender, since not only was it discontinued but the magazine in which it ran was also cancelled.
- Deconstructed Tropes: His best-known works are deconstructions of genres like Mons (Shadow Star) and Super Robot (Bokurano).
- Dating Catwoman: One of the main characters of Sinna 1905 has a crush on a woman who fights on the opposite side of the war.
- Dysfunction Junction: Gee, where to start. . .
- Pretty much none of the dragon-bearers in Shadow Star are mentally well-adjusted; even Shiina loses her cool at the end.
- The Humongous Mecha pilots in Bokurano are similar.
- His short story series Hallucinations from the Womb is set in entire city that's one of these.
- Enfant Terrible: Many of the kids in Shadow Star are pretty nasty, as is Kodama from Bokurano.
- Humans Are Bastards: The standard message of his stories
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: Wings of Vendemiaire has some Gratuitous French, Shadow Star has some Gratuitous Russian, and Sinna 1905 is unusual in having a great deal of Gratuitous Ainu. Futago no Teikoku contains a lot of Gratuitous Chinese.
- Humongous Mecha: Bokurano is a deconstruction of this idea.
- His short manga Sinna 1905 and Kaze no Ou are more straight examples.
- Kids Are Cruel / Teens Are Monsters: All over the place.
- Lighter and Softer: Noririn, which is about bicycling. It's pretty tame.
- A lot of his oneshots qualify too. For example, Ekrano, despite its post-apocalyptic setting, is pretty much G-rated.
- Military Moe: Owari to Hajimari no Miles and Hayabusa-Chan no Tondemasu both count, with their teenage girl protagonists and detailed images of military vehicles.
- Mood Whiplash / From Bad to Worse: Always expect those when reading his works ...
- Noodle People: Kitoh's characters are almost always slender and gangly, even if they're supposed to be overweight.
- No Export for You: The only works of his to have gotten official English translations were Shadow Star and Bokurano.
- Our Monsters Are Weird: He has a serious creative streak when it comes to designing monsters, including the various Dragons from Shadow Star, the Septentriones from Devil Survivor 2, the Kujirani from Ekrano, and the Third Angel from Rebuild of Evangelion.
- Rape as Drama: A lot, but the most disturbing example is to be found in Hallucinations from the Womb. In it, a man has sex with a girl and gives her an STD.
- Shown Their Work: Kitoh has a lot of technical knowledge about vehicles, especially aircraft, and it shows in his manga. This is especially true in the manga version of Bokurano, which has technical details on the futuristic aircraft in the bonus segments.
- He's also fluent in Russian, and Russia shows up surprisingly often.
- Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: His most famous works are extremely far on the "cynical" end of the scale, but the other stuff he's written is a lot more variable.
- Steampunk: Wings of Vendemiaire, Futago no Teikoku, Sinna 1905, and Kaze no Ou all have elements of this.
- Straw Nihilist: It's hard to tell whether he's one himself or not, but some of his characters and perhaps several of his stories definitely are nihilistic.
