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Legacy and influence on manga industry

Stamps were issued in Tezuka's honor in 1997. Also, beginning in 2003, the Japanese toy company Kaiyodo began manufacturing a series of figurines of Tezuka's creations, including Princess Knight, Unico, the Phoenix, Dororo, Marvelous Melmo, Ambassador Magma, and many others. To date, three series of the figurines have been released.

Tezuka's legacy has continued to be honored among manga artists and animators and companies. He guided many well-known manga artists, such as Shotaro Ishinomori and Go Nagai. Artists and companies that have cited Tezuka as an influence include Monkey Punch (Lupin III), Katsuhiro Otomo (Akira), Go Nagai (Devilman, Mazinger Z, Cutie Honey), Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, My Neighbor Totoro), Akira Toriyama (Dragon Ball), Naoko Takeuchi (Sailor Moon), Naoko's husband Yoshihiro Togashi (YuYu Hakusho, Hunter × Hunter), Clamp (Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle, xxxHolic), Katsu Aki (Futari Ecchi), Tetsuo Hara (Fist Of The North Star), Keisuke Itagaki (Baki the Grappler), Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura, Ranma ½, Inuyasha), Masami Kurumada (Saint Seiya), Kentaro Miura (Berserk), Hitoshi Iwaaki (Parasyte, Historie), Kenichi Sonoda (Gunsmith Cats), Moto Hagio (The Poe Clan), Yoshihiro Tatsumi (A Drifting Life), Osamu Akimoto (Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen Mae Hashutsujo), Yudetamago (Kinnikuman), Keiko Takemiya (Toward the Terra), Kosuke Fujishima (Oh My Goddess), Yuu Watase (Fushigi Yugi), Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, Space Pirate Captain Harlock), Takehiko Ito (Outlaw Star), Yoshiharu Tsuge (The Man Without Talent), Hirohiko Araki (JoJo's Bizzare Adventure), Tetsuya Chiba (Ashita no Joe), Koshi Rikudo (Excel Saga), Hideo Azuma (Nanako SOS), Satoru Noda (Golden Kamuy), Keiji Nakazawa (Barefoot Gen), Hitoshi Okuda (Tenchi Muyo!), Fujiko Fujio (Doraemon), Naoki Urasawa (20th Century Boys), Tatsunoko (Yatterman), Bandai (Digimon), Nintendo (Pokémon), Gainax (Neon Genesis Evangelion) and Capcom (Street Fighter, Megaman). From 2003 to 2009, Urasawa and Takashi Nagasaki adapted an arc of Astro Boy into the murder mystery series Pluto.

His legacy also extends to cartoonists outside of Japan. Will Eisner called himself an 'ardent admirer' of Tezuka's work. Craig Thompson called him 'Japan's greatest cartoonist'. Art Spiegelman compared his place in the history of manga to that of Siddhartha 's in Buddhism. Chester Brown has praised his dramatic skills, stating that they 'make the pages fly by.' Scott McCloud has stated that he had a bookshelf of untranslated Tezuka which he 'studied like the Torah for hours on end'. Dash Shaw called him 'the absolute greatest'.

Film director Guillermo del Toro has cited Tezuka as an influence. Video game designers such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Yuji Horii have stated that they were influenced by Tezuka's works and video games such as Mega Man, Jumping Flash! and Chaos Seed have cited Tezuka's work as a source of influence. Hideo Kojima mentions Tezuka's work as being one of the most impressionable parts of the Expo '70, which he considers to be a formative experience on himself as an adolescent youth. Fumito Ueda mentions Tezuka's 'One Million Year Trip: Bandar Book' as an anime which left a strong impression on him growing up.

Tezuka was a personal friend (and apparent artistic influence) of Brazilian comic book artist Mauricio de Sousa. In 2012, Maurício published a two-issue story arc in the Monica Teen comic book featuring some of Tezuka's main characters, including Astro Boy, Black Jack, Sapphire, and Kimba, joining Monica and her friends in an adventure in the Amazon rainforest against a smuggling organization chopping down hundreds of trees. This was the first time that Tezuka Productions allowed overseas artists to use Tezuka's characters.

In October 2019, a project was announced called Tezuka 2020, which is AI -illustrated manga in his style. At first, the illustrations were distorted and horrifying, but after studying actual human faces, the illustrations looked more like his. After looking through thousands of AI-generated pictures, one stood out, and the illustrator Urumu Tsunogai created the new protagonist. In 2020, an AI writer-artist made by Kioxia was tasked to make a new "Tezuka" manga called Paidon, which takes place in a futuristic apocalyptic society, which was released in the magazine Morning on 27 February 2020. It is part of the project, which will also be drawn by physical human beings such as Shigeto Ikehara, Kenichi Kiriki, and Urumu Tsunogai. Tezuka's son held a ceremony on 26 February 2020, to introduce people to the manga. The publisher of the magazine already confirmed that a sequel is in production. The manga was published in English on June 4, 2020 under the name Phaedo.