Monkey Punch (???????? Monk? Panchi) is the pen name of mangaka Kazuhiko Kat? (???? Kat? Kazuhiko, born May 26, 1937), creator of the successful Japanese manga series Lupin III. He was born in Hamanakach?, Hokkaid?.

Kat? first started to work as a mangaka under the pen name Kazuhiko Kat? (???? Kat? Kazuhiko, pronounced the same as his real name, but written with different characters) for a publisher that specialized in rental books and magazines. In 1965, he made his debut with "Playboy School" (????????, Pur?b?i ny?mon), writing under the name of Eiji Gamuta (????? Gamuta Eiji). Subsequently, he changed his pen name to Monkey Punch, which he intended only as a throwaway name, but it stuck.

His manga series Lupin III made its debut in 1967 in the first issue of the Japanese magazine Weekly Manga Action (WEEKLY???????). It became extremely popular and successful, being turned later into an animated series and yielding several movies by various directors (including Hayao Miyazaki.)

Monkey Punch has acknowledged the influence of Mad Magazine artists Mort Drucker and Sergio Aragonés on his work.

This author page uses material from the Wikipedia article "Monkey Punch", which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0