Sakura tsukuba

Sakura Tsukuba ( Japanese 筑波 さ く ら , Tsukuba Sakura ; born February 16, 19xx in Saitama Prefecture , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist .

For the 32-page short story Hikari no Dodeki Haru no Hini she won the fifth LMG Kasaku Prize. The manga made its debut with its publication in July 1994 in the manga magazine LaLa DX , which is aimed primarily at teenage girls, so mangas of the Shōjo genre is dedicated. Several other short stories followed for LaLa DX and its sister magazines LaLa and Lunatic LaLa . From 1998 she also created a few short works for Melody magazine, which is aimed at an older target group and , like the LaLa magazine, is published by Hakusensha Verlag.

The breakthrough for the illustrator came with her first longer series, Mekakushi no Kuni , which she published for the first time in January 1999 in LaLa DX . In Mekakushi no Kuni , Tsukuba tells of a young person who can see the future fate of the people she touches. She meets a boy who has an ability similar to her; however, he can see into the past. The manga series moved to LaLa, which reached a larger readership, in 2000 and did not end there until March 2004, after more than 1,700 pages, which were also published in nine edited volumes. Mekakushi no Kuni has been translated into English. From 2008 to 2009 a new edition of the Bunkoban appeared in five volumes.

Two months before the end of Mekakushi no Kuni , the first chapter of a new series of Tsukubas was shown in LaLa DX . Yoroshiku Master (as Sweet Santa in Germany at Tokyopop) has since appeared in the magazine at irregular intervals and was summarized in three anthologies until 2009. It is about a seventeen-year-old who is apparently a Santa Claus and initially meets her reindeer in human form. Since October 2004 the author has been working on another comic, the Penguin Kakumei , which has so far comprised around 700 pages , for the LaLa . Once again, Tsukuba focuses on a girl who has a special ability: she can recognize certain auras in the outlines of birds.

Works (selection)

• Hikari no Dodeki Haru no Hi ni ( 光 の ど け き 春 の 日 に ), 1994
• Mori no Koe ( 森 の 声 ), 1994
• Hyakka Nimusho no Akuma ( 百花 事務所 の 悪 魔 ), 1996
• Machigaeru Otoko ( 間 違 え る 男 ), 1997
• Mekakushi no Kuni (目 隠 し の 国 ), 1999–2004, 9 volumes
• Yoroshiku Master ( よ ろ し く マ ス タ ー ), since 2003, so far 3 volumes
• Penguin Kakumei ( ペ ン ギ ン 革命 ), 2004–2007, 7 volumes
• Tonari no Inuyama-kun ( と な り の 犬 山 く ん ), since 2008

Web links

• List of all publications (Japanese)
• Profile and Interview at Hakusensha (Japanese)