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Moto, Mister. Mister Moto was created by John P. Marquand (Bill Price) and appeared in five story serials, six novels and story collections, and seven movies from 1935 to 1965, beginning with “No Hero” (Saturday Evening Post, Mar. 30, 1935).

I.O. Moto is Japan's top intelligence agent and (in the films) detective. He is soft-spoken, very polite, and relatively modest about himself, although he is, more properly, a modest man with much to be immodest about. He has a wide range of skills, is multi-lingual, has studied abroad, is very bright and insightful, and is an expert in judo, being capable of killing an enemy with very little difficulty.

* I'm including Mister Moto in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of his archetypal status. Well...iconic status, anyhow. Thanks to both the stories and novels and the movies, Mister Moto's lifespan was thirty years, and in that time, thanks to Marquand's prose and Peter Lorre's sleek, careful portrayal, Moto became an icon to Americans of international detection and specifically of Japanese masculinity. He was neither written nor portrayed by a Japanese man, of course, so Moto and Marquand and Lorre are open to various charges. Nonetheless, the stories and novels are entertaining and Moto's cultural impact not to be underrated. 

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