Since his childhood, Terada grew up immersed in Japanese manga culture. When Terada was fifteen years old, he discovered the work of French artist Moebius (or Jean Giraud) and the Japanese manga artist and creator of Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo. Growing up, these two artist were inspirational to Terada for combining clean line art styles from book illustration with the dynamic energy of manga. The work of Moebius also encouraged Terada to develop his own aesthetic stylized less along anime lines, but rather more realistic in its approach. In elementary school, Terada notes that he stood out for drawing and painting, stating, "I was small and couldn't study, so I focused more on painting." Like many young Japanese boys, he grew up buying Weekly Shonen Jump and other comic book titles from his pocket money. As a child, he aspired to becoming a cartoonist, but worried about having to write his own narratives. In junior high school, he geared his ambitions more towards becoming a book illustrator. He says, "I wanted to have it the easy way. An illustrator doesn't have to think about the story." The artist describes himself as an "incessant scribbler," riding the Tokyo subway filling up notebooks that he buys "by the box." He describes drawing as almost a physical need for him, comparing his daily routine to the preparations of a marathon runner: "The more time I spend on drawing, the closer I get to that line that I am imagining. Every day of practice prepares you better for that one moment."
Terada began his career as a manga artist and illustrator. After high school, Terada enrolled in Asagaya College of Art and Design in Tokyo while his family lived in Chiba, and took his first assignments designing advertisements. With this early advertising success, Terada rented his first apartment. At age 21 he received a commission for work from animator Toshio Nishiuchi to produce character designs, background illustrations, instruction manual art, as well as a logo for Nintendo's home entertainment system, the NES/Famicom. Following this assignment, Terada took on more work in the Japanese gaming industry. From 1989 to 1995, he produced illustrations for Nintendo Power, a promotional magazine for North American markets, particularly on The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. Terada's illustrations served to supplement player experiences of the NES games, due to the early system's limited capacity to show details on a screen. Terada then worked on the box art for the Japanese edition of the video game Prince of Persia for the SNES, as well as character designs for Virtua Fighter 2, SEGA's 1994 follow-up to the influential Virtua Fighter, embracing 3D designs.
However, he has become best known for character design projects, such as his work for the Japanese animated film Blood: The Last Vampire. In the case of Blood: The Last Vampire, the game's director, Hiroyuki Kitakubo, specifically reached out with the film script in hand to commission Terada to develop character sketches. Terada has also undertaken work related to American comics, such as Iron Man and Hellboy (one of his illustrations was used for an official statuette of Hellboy). He made additional contributions to early issues of Nintendo Power, including a special edition strategy guide for Dragon Warrior and artwork for The Legend of Zelda. In Japan, he was responsible for the original character designs for the Tantei Jingūji Saburō mystery adventure video game series, and has worked prolifically on this series, most consistently as the cover illustration artist. Terada was in charge of the book cover and illustrations for the Kimaira series written by Baku Yumemakura, and was in charge of cover design and illustrations for Garōden, Shin Majugari, and Yamigarishi, as well. Terada has defined himself as a "rakugaki" artist, which he invokes more in terms of a philosophy than a specific style of drawing: he draws a little bit everywhere, all the time, on notebooks and other surfaces without thinking too much. He is a very prolific artist with one of his sketch collections numbering more than 1000 pages, and appropriately titled RakugaKing. He has done very little group-drawn work, his principal activities being illustration and character design.

Return to Katsuya Terada Autograph Profile