Thank you for reading and pointing out the typo. 10 or 20 years ago feel recent to me, even though it's been quite a while relatively speaking.
Many anime have awesome backstories, sometimes even more interesting than the anime in question. It just takes a little bit of research to make me appreciate a work even more. I rewrote this post plenty of times because I wasn't satisfied with it.
After all, I only tackled one portion of Mizuki's history. I linked an awesome medium article that you must absolutely read, and if you can, get the manga as well. I know I will order it soon whenever I can.
Also, here's another factoid I didn't mention about Mizuki. He actually lost his arm in the war, and was drawing manga with only one arm since.
Wow, that's cool to know. Drawing with one arm is very hard and yet he produced such an awesome work.
I agree, some backstories are even more interesting than the finished work themselves.