[4] His style was characterized by mythological and often tragic storylines with strong moral themes, noble heroes, feminine heroines, and a love of strange worlds and melancholic atmosphere.

[6] He was the middle child of a family of seven brothers, and, in his early childhood, Matsumoto was given a 35mm film projector by his father, and watched American cartoons during the Pacific War.

[8] Matsumoto's big break came with Otoko Oidon, a series that chronicled the life of a rōnin (a young man preparing for university entrance exams), in 1971.

In 1972 he created the mature-themed dark comedy Western seinen series Gun Frontier for the Play Comic magazine, which ran from 1972 to 1975.

[5] Matsumoto supervised the creation of several music videos for the French house group Daft Punk, set to tracks from their album Discovery.

[5] Approximately two dozen bronze statues – each four feet tall – of characters and scenes from Space Battleship Yamato and Galaxy Express 999 were erected in the downtown area of Tsuruga in 1999.

[20] On November 15, 2019, Matsumoto suffered severe respiratory problems and collapsed during an event in Turin, Italy, for the 40th-anniversary tour celebrating the Captain Harlock anime adaptation.