Matsumoto Taiyou

Taiyō Matsumoto (Japanese: 松本 大洋, Hepburn: Matsumoto Taiyō, born October 25, 1967) is a Japanese manga artist from Tokyo. He has won several awards, including the Shogakukan Manga Award, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize and Eisner Award.

Matsumoto originally wanted to be a soccer player, but changed to artist as an occupation instead. After his initial success in the Comic Open contest, he began touring France in 1986, an event that became a significant point in his career. The manga he produced covers a variety of topics, from sports to family comedies to science fiction epics.

In 1993, he began work on the Tekkonkinkreet manga, which became a success in the Big Spirits magazine, and published a series of short stories in a collection called Nihon no Kyodai that was publicized at the time by Comic Aré magazine. Ping Pong appeared in Big Spirits in 1996, soon followed by the series No. 5 in Shogakukan's Monthly Ikki magazine in 2000.

The Tekkonkinkreet anime was released in Japan in late 2006, and both the anime and manga have been published in English.