Ryoko Yamagishi

Ryōko Yamagishi ( Japanese 山 岸 凉子 , Yamagishi Ryōko ; born September 24, 1947 in Kamisunagawa , Hokkaidō , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist whose works are primarily aimed at a female audience and can be assigned to the Shōjo or Josei genre . Like Riyoko Ikeda and Moto Hagio , she is counted among the 24s .

biography

Yamagishi practiced ballet in her youth , which influenced her later work. When she read the first work of the 16-year-old manga artist Machiko Satonaka in 1964 , she decided to draw comics herself. Although her parents did not agree with this choice of profession, she took part in a competition for the manga magazine Shōjo Friend in 1966 and made it to the final, but had to admit defeat to another illustrator. She then applied to Kodansha Publishing and sent a few short stories to COM magazine , which was known for discovering many young talent.

In 1968, after completing her art studies at a junior college in Hokkaidō, she went to Tokyo to apply to the Shueisha publishing house. In May 1969, Yamagishi's debut work, the short story Left & Right , appeared in Ribon , a magazine for young girls. In the following months she created other short mangas for Ribon and worked partly in the Ōizumi salon , where Keiko Takemiya and Moto Hagio lived together. She also created short stories for the girls' manga magazines Bessatsu Seventeen , Nakayoshi , Deluxe Margaret and for the first Josei magazine Funny .

Her manga series Arabesque , which is about a Russian ballet dancer, was her first success. After half of the manga appeared in Ribon from 1971 to 1973, Yamagishi changed publishers and published the rest of her 1,400-page manga in Hana-to-Yume magazine at Hakusensha . In this magazine, which is aimed at a readership older than Ribon but had a smaller circulation, most of Yamagishi's works, including Metamorphosis Den and Yousei-ou , appeared in the following years . The latter is her only comic so far that has been filmed as an anime .

From 1980 to 1984 the author worked on Hi izuru Tokoro no Tenshi . The over 2,000-page manga series deals with topics such as Buddhism, redemption and love with the character of the emperor's son Shōtoku Taishi (574–622), who is bisexual and has supernatural abilities. Hi izuru Tokori no Tenshi , which was published in LaLa , won the Kodansha Manga Prize in the Shōjo category in 1983 and is considered one of her most famous works.

In 1981 she published two short stories in the magazine Manga Shōnen or Duo , which was aimed at both sexes, but continued to draw for magazines whose readers were predominantly girls of middle or high school age, such as Bouquet and Petit Comic . She also worked for Big Comic for Lady , whose target group were women in their twenties. From 1985 to 1989, many short stories and short manga series by Yamagishi such as Kamikakushi or Yamato Takeru appeared in Asuka , a magazine aimed at teenage girls and in which mainly fantasy mangas appear. In the 1990s she turned back to the Josei genre and drew mangas for You magazine, but also for Nemuki , Bessatsu Princess , Comic Tom , Amie , Melody and LaLa. Her longer works from this period include Fūin , the horror manga Oni , set in 17th century Japan, and Tutankhamun . She has taken up Greek mythology in numerous mangas since the 1980s, and some of her works have titles such as Medusa , Terpsichore and Harpy .

From 2000 to 2006 her ballet manga Maihime Terpsichore appeared in the literary magazine Da Vinci . Maihime Terpsichore has over 2,000 pages. The manga was nominated for the Kodansha Manga Prize in 2006 and the Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize in 2004 and 2005 . He won the latter in 2007.

meaning

Like the other 24s, Yamagishi had a great influence on the Shōjo manga. Even before Riyoko Ikeda with Oniisama E one of the most famous in 1975 Yuri should create -Mangas, Yamagishi, published in 1971 with Shiroi Heya no Futari one of the first Japanese comics about lesbian love. In Europe and the USA, Yamagishi was not noticed, which is why none of her works, of which there are several new editions in Japan, have been translated into German and English.

Among other things, Akimi Yoshida , known for Banana Fish , was inspired by her. Kaoru Shintani worked as an assistant to her.

Works (selection)

• Left & Right ( レ フ ト & ラ イ ト , Refuto & Raito ), 1969
• Arabesque (ア ラ ベ ス ク , Arabesuku ), 1971–1973
• Shiroi Heya no Futari ( 白 い 部屋 の ふ た り ), 1971
• Arabesque 2 ( ア ラ ベ ス ク 第 2 部 , Arabesuku Dai-2-bu ), 1974-1975
• Metamorphosis Den ( メ タ モ ル フ ォ シ ス 伝 , Metamorufoshisu-den ), 1976
• Yōsei-ō ( 妖精 王 ), 1977–1978
• Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi (日 出処 の 天子 ), 1980–1984
• Medusa ( メ デ ュ ウ サ , Medyūsa ), 1982
• Kamikakushi ( 神 か く し ), 1985–1986
• Ruri no Tsume ( 瑠 璃 の 爪 ), 1986
• Yamato Takeru ( ヤ マ ト タ ケ ル ), 1991
• Fūin ( 封印 ), 1994-1995
• Oni ( 鬼 ), 1995-1996
• Tutankhamun ( ツ タ ン カ ー メ ン , Tsutankāmun ), 1996–1997
• Aoao no Jidai (青青 の 時代 ), 1998-2000
• Maihime Terpsichore (舞 姫 テ レ プ シ コ ー ラ , Maihime Terupishikōra ), 2000–2006

Web links

• Fansite with CV and list of works (Japanese)