Career
He has received critical praise for his unconventional and often surrealist art style. Ping Pong and Blue Spring have been adapted into live-action feature films. Animation studio Studio 4°C adapted Tekkonkinkreet into an animated feature film.
He is the cousin of Santa Inoue, another manga artist.
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 Number.
5 in the Shogakukan magazine in 2001. The Tekkonkinkreet anime was released in Japan in late 2006, and both the anime and manga have been published in English.