Jiro Kuwata was a Japanese manga artist born on April 17, 1935, in Suita, Osaka, and he passed away on July 2, 2020, at the age of 85. He began his professional career at a remarkably young age, creating his first comic, The Strange Star Cluster, in 1948 when he was only thirteen years old. His breakthrough came in 1957 with the creation of Maboroshi Tantei, also known as Phantom Detective, a series about a teenage detective that was later adapted into a tokusatsu television series. Kuwata was a prominent figure in the shonen genre, primarily known for his science fiction and superhero works.

Kuwata is best known for co-creating the seminal manga 8 Man in 1963 alongside writer Kazumasa Hirai. Serialized in Weekly Shonen Magazine, 8 Man is recognized as one of Japan's earliest cyborg superhero stories, telling the tale of a detective who is murdered and then resurrected as a powerful, shape-shifting cyborg. The series was a major success and was later adapted into an anime television series. In addition to this original work, Kuwata created other superhero manga throughout the 1960s, including King Robo and Electroid X-Man, and also produced manga adaptations of popular television shows such as Ultra Seven.

Outside of Japan, Kuwata is highly regarded for his licensed Batman manga, often referred to as Bat-Manga. At the height of the Batman television series craze in 1966, a Japanese publisher secured the rights from DC Comics, and Kuwata was enlisted to write and draw the series for a Japanese audience. Running for about a year, this version was not a direct translation of American comics but a unique reinterpretation, featuring original villains like Lord Death Man and a distinctive science fiction-influenced tone. The series remained largely unknown in the West until it was rediscovered and republished in English, first as Bat-Manga! The Secret History of Batman in Japan in 2008 and later as The Jiro Kuwata Batmanga by DC Comics in 2014.

Kuwata's career faced significant interruptions. In 1965, as he was finishing the final chapter of 8 Man, he was arrested for possession of a handgun. The series was completed by other artists in his absence. Following this event, he struggled with depression and alcoholism. In 1977, he converted to Buddhism and shifted his creative focus, producing manga and art books centered on the life of Buddha. Despite his later focus on religious themes, Kuwata occasionally returned to his earlier work, and in 1992, he created his own version of the final issue of 8 Man. His career, spanning over seven decades, established him as a pioneering force in Japanese superhero manga and left a unique mark on international comic book history through his distinctive take on Batman.