Hanako Yamada (Mangaka)

Hanako Yamada ( Japanese 山田 花子 , Yamada Hanako ; born June 10, 1967 , † May 24, 1992 ), actually Yumi Takaichi ( 高市 由 美 , Takaichi Yumi ), was a Japanese manga artist .

In September 1982, at the age of fifteen, Yamada won a young talent award from the manga magazine Nakayoshi . She won the award under the pseudonym Kamome Uramachi ( 裏 町 か も め Uramachi Kamome ) for the short gag manga Akarui Nakama ( 明 る い 仲 間 ). This was finally published in 1983 in Nakayoshi Deluxe , a sister magazine of Nakayoshi , and was Yamada's first publication. Until 1984 she created other, largely neglected works for Nakayoshi Deluxe . These comics were mostly aimed at young girls.

After she hadn't published anything for three years, she won the Tetsuya Chiba Prize , a young magazine award for young talent , in 1987 - she had now adopted the pseudonym Hanako Yamada . In contrast to her early work for Nakayoshi , Yamada henceforth focused on comics for an adult readership. Although she also drew manga series for Young Magazine - including Kami no Aku Fuzake ( 神 の 悪 フ ザ ケ ) from 1988 to 1989 - she was best known for her work for the alternative magazine Garo . From 1989 she published over 25 short stories in Garo . Some of the short stories came out in 1990 under the title Nageki no Tenshi ( 嘆 き の 天使 ) by Seirindō publishing as an anthology.

On May 24, 1992, at the age of 24, Yamada committed suicide by throwing herself off an 11-story building. She had recently been discharged from a mental hospital for schizophrenia . After her death, several new editions of her works were published and her columns appeared in book form. The August 1992 edition of Garo was dedicated to Yamada.

An excerpt from the series Maria no Kōmon ( マ リ ア の 肛門 ), on which Yamada worked from 1989 to 1991 for Leed Comic magazine , was published in 1996 in the book Comics Underground Japan .

Web links

• Essay on the suicide of Yamada and the manga artist Nekojiru (English)
• Full list of her publications (Japanese)