Nao Yazawa
Nao Yazawa ( Japanese 谷 沢 直 , Yazawa Nao ; born July 29, 19xx in Tokyo Prefecture ) is a Japanese manga artist .
biography
Yazawa wanted to become a manga artist even as a child. Although she only pursued drawing as a hobby in her youth and never seriously wanted to become a comic artist, she applied to various publishing houses after studying Chinese history. After winning first place in a young talent competition, she worked for a year as an assistant for other draftsmen.
Her first work as a professional draftsman was Gengorō mairu! . The short story was published in 1989 in the manga magazine Bessatsu CoroCoro Comic , a sister magazine of CoroCoro, which was mainly aimed at boys of primary school age ( Shōnen ) . More short stories for the magazine followed. The Shogakukan publishing house, the publisher of CoroCoro , wanted to establish a magazine for girls similar to the CoroCoro and therefore founded the Pyon Pyon magazine. Yazawa decided to draw shōjo mangas for a female readership and created some works for Pyon Pyon , for example the Magical Girl Manga Mahō Shōjo Chūkana Paipai! after the television series of the same name.
However, the artist's breakthrough came when she published the manga series Wedding Peach from 1994 to 1996 based on an idea by Sukehiro Tomita in Ciao magazine. Wedding Peach was successfully implemented as an anime television series and translated into several languages.
She designed the storyboard for the 1992 anime film Mirai no Omoide based on Fujiko F. Fujio . In addition to her work on the commercial manga market, Yazawa also publishes dōjinshi . Her dōjinshi Shinkū Chitai , which the German publisher Egmont Manga & Anime published in Manga Power magazine, has achieved particular fame .
The illustrator, who admires Katsuhiro Otomo and Osamu Tezuka among others , takes her ideas for her stories from her knowledge of Chinese history, but also from books, films and her own experiences.
Yazawa lives in Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture .
Works (selection)
- Gengorō mairu! ( ゲ ン ゴ ロ ウ 参 る! ), 1989
- Mahō Shōjo Chūkana Paipai! ( 魔法 少女 ち ゅ う か な ぱ い ぱ い! )
- Itadaki! Panther ( い た だ き! パ ン サ ー )
- Akari CHU Gaeri ( あ か り CHU が え り )
- Wedding Peach (ウ ェ デ ィ ン グ ピ ー チ , Wedingu Pīchi ), 1994–1996
- Shinkū Chitai ( 真空 地 帯 )
Web links
- Official website (Japanese)
- Interview with Yazawa
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Yazawa, Nao |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | 谷 沢 直 (Japanese) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Japanese manga artist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 29th 20th century |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tokyo Prefecture , Japan |