Sakyo Komatsu

Sakyo Komatsu studied at Kyoto University. The recorded working language is Japanese. Subjects and genres recorded for the work are science fiction. Employment is recorded with Josai International University. Works named in the authority record are Japan Sinks. Distinctions recorded are Nihon SF Taisho Award and Seiun Award for Best Japanese Novel.

• Birth Name — Minoru Komatsu • Born — 28 January 1931 • Birthplace — Osaka, Japan • Died — 26 July 2011 • Place of death — Minoh, Osaka, Japan • Occupation — Novelist • Education — Kyoto University • Genre — Science fiction • Subject — Futurology • Notable Works — Japan Sinks • Awards — 1985 Nihon SF Taisho Award

Born Minoru "Sakyo" Komatsu in Osaka, he was a graduate of Kyoto University where he studied Italian literature. After graduating, he worked at various jobs, including as a magazine reporter and a writer for stand-up comedy acts.

Komatsu's writing career began in the 1960s. Reading Kōbō Abe and Italian classics made Komatsu feel modern literature and science fiction are the same. In 1961, he submitted for the 1st Scientific-fiction Contest of Hayakawa's SF Magazine: "Peace on Earth" was a short story in which World War II does not end in 1945 and a young man prepares to defend Japan against the Allied invasion. Komatsu received an honourable mention and 5000 yen. He won the same contest the following year with the story, "Memoirs of an Eccentric Time Traveller". His first novel, The Japanese Apache, was published two years later and sold 50,000 copies. In the West he is best known for the novels Japan Sinks (1973) and Sayonara Jupiter (1982). Both were adapted to film, Submersion of Japan (1973) and Bye Bye Jupiter (1984). The story "The Savage Mouth" was translated by Judith Merril and has been anthologized. At the time of publication, his apocalyptic vision of a sunk Japan wiped out by shifts incurred through geographic stress worried a Japan still haunted by the atomic devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He was inspired to write it thinking of what would happen if the nationalistic Japanese lost their land, and ironically prefigured the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami that triggered a nuclear plant disaster decades later on March 11, 2011 – the result of which he was interested in "to see how Japan would evolve" after the catastrophe. Komatsu was involved in organizing the Japan World Exposition in Osaka Prefecture in 1970. In 1984, Komatsu served as a technical consultant for a live concert in Linz, Austria, by Japanese electronic composer Isao Tomita. He won the 1985 Nihon SF Taisho Award. Komatsu was one of two Author Guests of Honor at Nippon 2007, the 65th World Science Fiction Convention in 2007 in Yokohama, Japan. This was the first Worldcon to be held in Asia. With Shin'ichi Hoshi and Yasutaka Tsutsui, Komatsu was considered one of the masters of Japanese science fiction.

Komatsu died on July 26, 2011, in Osaka from complications with pneumonia at the age of 80. Five days before his death, his quarterly publication, Sakyo Komatsu Magazine, released an issue featuring an article on his thoughts about the 2011 tsunami. In the article, Komatsu expressed hope that his country would evolve after the catastrophe. "I had thought I wouldn't mind dying any day... but now I'm feeling like living a little bit longer and seeing how Japan will go on hereafter," he wrote.

• Novels • Japan Sinks • Virus: The Day of Resurrection (Viz Media, 2012) • Short stories • "The Savage Mouth" • The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories, Dembner Books, 1989 / Barricade Books, 1997 • Speculative Japan, Kurodahan Press, 2007 • "Take Your Choice" (The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories, Dembner Books, 1989 / Barricade Books, 1997) • "The Kudan's Mother" (Kaiki: Uncanny Tales from Japan, Volume 2: Country Delights, Kurodahan Press, 2010)

A complete works collection is being published in on-demand-print format by Jōsai Kokusai Daigaku Shuppankai.

• Nihon apatchi zoku (1964) • Fukkatsu no hi (1964); English translation: Virus: The Day of Resurrection (2012) • Asu dorobō (1965) • Esupai (1965) • Hateshinaki nagare no hate ni (1966) • Goemon no nippon nikki (1966) • Mishiranu asu (1969) • Tsugu no wa dare ka? (1972) • Nippon chinbotsu (1973); English translation (abridged): Japan Sinks (1976) • Dai mitei (1977) • Kochira nippon... (1977) • Jikū dōchū hizakurige (1977) • Sora kara ochite kita rekishi (1981) • Sayonara Jupiter (1982) • Toki ya sora chikyū no michiyuki (1988) • Shuto shōshitsu (1985) • Kyomu kairō (1987, 2000) (unfinished) • Nihon chinbotsu dai ni bu (2006) (co-written with Kōshū Tani)

• Uchūjin Pipi (1965, NHK) • Kūchūtoshi 008 (1969, NHK) — Science fiction Marionette drama • Saru no Gundan (1974, TBS) — Science fiction Tokusatsu drama • Nihon Chinbotsu (1974, TBS) — Television version of film • Komatsu Sakyō Anime Gekijō (Sakyo Komatsu's Animation Theater) (1989) • Japan Sinks: 2020 — Netflix anime adaptation (2020) • Japan Sinks: People of Hope — TBS live-action series adaptation (2021)

Sakyo Komatsu is recorded as writer, screenwriter, novelist, mangaka and journalist.

• Chi ni wa heiwa o (1963) • Kage ga kasanaru toki (1964) • Nihon urimasu (1965) • Ikiteiru ana (1967) • Kami e no nagai michi (1967) • Mokei no jidai (1968) • Ueta uchū (1968) • Kesshō seidan (1973) • Manga • Maboroshi no Komatsu Sakyō Mori Minoru Manga Zenshū (2002)