Taku Tsumugi

Taku Tsumugi ( Japanese 紡 木 た く , Tsumugi Taku ; born August 2, 1964 in Yokohama , Kanagawa , Japan ) is a Japanese manga artist .

She published her first manga as a professional illustrator in 1982 with the short story Machibito in the manga magazine Bessatsu Margaret , which - like Margaret - is published by Shueisha- Verlag and is aimed at girls between 13 and 18 years of age. After a few more short stories, which were also published collectively in paperback between 1984 and 1986, she drew her first continuous series in 1985 with Tsukue wo stage ni . The series published in Bessatsu Margaret from August to November 1985 comprises 200 pages.

Tsumugi's breakthrough came in 1986 with Hot Road . In it she tells of the high school student Kazuki who falls in love with the youthful leader of a motorcycle gang. The 800-page manga series, also published in Bessatsu Margaret, was commercially very successful in Japan. With a circulation of seven million copies in four volumes, Hot Road was one of the most successful shōjo mangas of the 1980s. The author's next work was Matataki mo sezu about Kayoko, who lives in a small town and experiences her first love.

From 1995 she didn’t draw any more mangas until December 2007 with My Gardener after 12 years a new volume from her appeared again. In the meantime, her works were constantly being republished in Japan and remained popular there.

The characters in her works, all of which are aimed at girls and can therefore be assigned to the Shōjo genre, mostly speak dialect. Landscapes and white surfaces are popular means of representation for the draftsman. In the volume Manga Design Masanao Amano wrote: "Tsumugi can graphically depict how feelings become so strong that reality no longer makes sense in front of one's eyes."

Works (selection)

• Machibito ( 待 ち 人 ), 1982
• Ano Natsu ga Umi ni iru ( あ の 夏 が 海 に い る ), 1983
• Tsukue o Stage ni ( 机 を ス テ ー ジ に ), 1985
• Hot Road (ホ ッ ト ロ ー ド , Hotto Rōdo ), 1986–1987
• Matataki mo sezu ( 瞬 き も せ ず ), 1988–1990
• Jun ( 純 ), 1991
• Kanashimi no Machi ( か な し み の ま ち ), 1994
• My Gardener ( マ イ ガ ー デ ナ ー , Mai Gādenā ), 2007

literature

• Masanao Amano, Julius Wiedermann (eds.): Taku Tsumugi . In: Manga Design . Taschen Verlag, 2004, ISBN 3-8228-2591-3 , pp. 332-335

Web links

• Biography and list of their works (English)