Akimi Yoshida

Akimi Yoshida ( Japanese 吉田 秋生 , Yoshida Akimi ; born August 12, 1956 in Tokyo Prefecture , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist . Her works, which are almost all published by Shogakukan in Japan , are aimed primarily at a female audience.

Life

During her studies at the Musashino Art University, she took part in a competition for the Shōgakukan- published manga magazine Shōjo Comic and was awarded for her short manga. With the short story Chotto Fushigi na Geshukunin she published in March 1977 in Bessatsu Shōjo Comic , a sister magazine of the Shōjo Comic with a circulation of about 800,000 at that time, her first work as a professional draftsman. It was followed by a few more short comics for Bessatsu Shōjo Comic , until she began her first longer manga in February 1978. California Monogatari , the title of the manga series set in New York , ended in December 1981 after more than 1,300 pages.

For two of her after the termination of California Monogatari created works, Kawa yori mo nagaku yuruyaka ni and Kisshō Tennyo , Yoshida won the 29th Shōgakukan Manga Prize in the Shōjo category in 1984 . Between May 1985 and July 1986 the illustrator published Sakura no Sono in LaLa magazine. In the manga, which was made into a live action film in 1990, she tells of a group of schoolgirls who don't care about gender roles and who grow up to be women.

In May 1985, the first chapter of Banana Fish appeared in the Bessatsu Shōjo comic , the most successful and, with a length of 3,400 pages in nineteen anthologies, the longest work by the author. The manga gained a large fan base shortly after its appearance. Banana Fish begins with a young American in Vietnam shooting wildly and murmuring "Banana Fish". The actual story revolves around Ash Lynx, a young, homosexual man in New York, leader of a street gang who finds out about the “banana fish” drug and, among other things, has to take on the mafia. The action-packed mystery thriller has been translated into Korean, Chinese, English, Italian, French and partly also into German. In 2018 the work was adapted as an anime series.

After finishing Banana Fish in September 1994, which was even mentioned in major newspapers, Yoshida drew Lovers' Kiss and, from July 1996, Yasha . The latter manga, which she completed in August 2002 after around 2,100 pages, is about cloned twin brothers. Yasha brought Yoshida a 2003 Seiun Prize nomination and a second Shogakukan Manga Prize in 2002. With Eve no Nemuri , the manga found a kind of continuation from August 2003 to 2005 in Flowers magazine, which is aimed at a slightly older target group than Bessatsu Shōjo Comic , since the protagonist is the son of one of the main characters in Yasha . Eve no Nemuri was nominated for the Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2006.

From 2006 to 2018 Yoshida worked for Flowers on the series Umimachi Diary about three sisters who meet their half-sister after the sudden death of their father. For this she won the Prize for Excellence at the Japan Media Arts Festival 2007 and was nominated for the Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2008 and 2009. Hirokazu Koreeda adapted it as a movie in 2016 ( Our Little Sister ).

Yoshida designed the character design for the 44-minute cartoon Bobby ni Kubittake ( ボ ビ ー に 首 っ た け ), published in 1985 , and published several art books (e.g. California Tuning for California Monogatari and Angel Eyes for Banana Fish ).

style

Akimi Yoshida draws comics for girls and young women ( shōjo manga ). Above all, Banana Fish was also very well received by young men, which can probably be traced back to her drawing style , which is atypical for a girl manga artist and mainly influenced by Katsuhiro Otomo . In Banana Fish , Yoshida used a clearer style than in, for example, Yasha , where she has adapted to the prevailing style of girl mangas with more delicate lines.

With the homosexuality of the protagonist in Banana Fish, Yoshida tied in with classic female illustrators such as Moto Hagio , but dispensed with large eyes and flowers for decoration, as was usual in girl manga, and instead concentrated on action scenes and speed lines , which are mainly in Shōnen and His manga were used. She was quite successful with that. Many of her works became bestsellers and were later reprinted.

Their works differ greatly in terms of plot. While Banana Fish is an action-packed crime story, Yasha and Eve no Nemuri can be settled in the science fiction field. Works like Kisshō Tennyo and Sakura no Kono , which are devoted to subjects such as the growing up of girls and the objectification of women, are different in a lyrical way . “[...] if you are looking for a connecting theme [in Yoshida's works],” says Masanao Amano in Manga Design , “it is probably in people who are oppressed by physical or political powers or trapped in their social environment looking for freedom. "

In addition to Otomo, they also influenced the manga artist Seiichi Hayashi , who is best known for his work for the avant-garde magazine Garo , and Ryōko Yamagishi, as well as American films such as Easy Rider and Asphalt-Cowboy .

Works (selection)

• Chotto Fushigi na Geshukunin ( ち ょ っ と 不 思議 な 下 宿 人 ), 1977
• California Monogatari ( カ リ フ ォ ル ニ ア 物語 ), 1978–1981
• Kawa yori mo nagaku yuruyaka ni ( 河 よ り も 長 く ゆ る や か に ), 1983
• Kisshō Tennyo ( 吉祥 天 女 ), 1983–1984
• Sakura no Sono ( 櫻 の 園 ), 1985–1986
• Banana Fish , 1985-1994
• Lovers' Kiss ( ラ ヴ ァ ー ズ ・ キ ス , ravāzu kisu ), 1995–1996
• Yasha ( YASHA- 夜叉 - ), 1996-2002
• Eve no Nemuri ( イ ヴ の 眠 り , ivu no nemuri ), 2003-2005
• Umimachi Diary ( 海 街 diary ), 2006-2018

Web links

• Biography and list of works (English)
• Dates of some of her book publications (Japanese)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Editions of Shōjo magazines from 1979 to 2000 ( Memento from December 27, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ ^{a b} Frederick L. Schodt: Dreamland Japan , p. 204
3. ↑ ^{a b} Jacqueline Berndt: Phenomenon Manga , p. 124
4. ↑ Sakura Ilgert: The stigma of the demon . In: AnimaniA . 06/2004, p. 48
5. ↑ Schodt, p. 206
6. ↑ ^{a b c} Masanao Amano: Manga Design , p. 565
7. ↑ Yoshida Akimi fan site