Kyoto International Manga Museum

ITAHASHI Syufo

Born in 1954 in Shiga Prefecture.
In 1976, while still a student at the Kyoto University of Art's department for traditionalist nihonga painting, Itahashi debuted with "Pale Cocoon" (Monthly OUT, Minori Publ.). In 1981, his "Run away to Lucky Route" (Weekly Shonen Jump, Shueisha) was accepted for the 21st Tezuka Award. In 1986, his series "AI CITY" (Super Action, Futabasha, 1983-1984) was adapted into an animated movie. Itahashi's specialty is SF action manga, and one can trace the influence of foreign, especially American comics in his rendering of characters and onomatopoeia. At present, he publishes mainly webcomics under the pen-name of SYUFO. Apart from manga he created the scenario for the TV Game "Running High" (1997), as well as the Play Station comic "Carol the Dark Angel" (1998). He also works as a designer of monsters for SFX television productions. In 2005 he started to work as part-time lecturer at Kyoto Seika University, where he serves now as full-time professor.

SASO Akira

Born in 1961 in Hyogo Prefecture.
Debuted in 1984 with "Shiroi shiroi natsu yanen" (Young Magazine, 3rd Grand Chiba Tetsuya Prize, Kodansha). Since then he has been publishing mainly in seinen [youth] manga magazines, addressing a broad variety of subjects without leaning on generic conventions. One of his representative works is "Shindō" [The Prodigy] (Manga Action, 1997-1998); it received both the 2nd Media Arts Award Excellence Prize (by the Agency of Cultural Affairs) and the 3rd Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize, and was adapted into a movie in 2007. His stories transcend the realm of manga, as is indicated by the film version of his "Kodomo no kodomo" [A child's child], which received a lot of attention for its daring issue of child pregnancy, that is, a 5th grade elementary school student who gives birth to a baby, as well as the NHK TV drama of ''Toto no sekai'' [Toto's world], a story about a boy who doesn't know any language. In 2009, he received another Media Arts Award Excellence Prize with "Maestro". Since 2006 he has been active as a full-time professor of Manga Faculty at Kyoto Seika University.

BELNE / SUGAYA Tatsu

Born in 1955 in Tokyo.
Debuted in 1976 in the shojo [girls'] manga magazine Viva Princess (Akita Shoten). As a pen-name she chose "Belne", alluding to a rare type of black rose. Through direct contact to Takemiya Keiko she became interested in the motif of same-sex love between men, and after the launch of JUNE magazine, she published several works there, in which she depicted strongly masculine adult bodies, something exceptional in shojo manga where neutral "beautiful boys" dominated at that time. Attracted by glam rock, which met her own aesthetic sense, she used David Bowie frequently as a recognizable inspiration for her own characters. To this day, she is highly dedicated to the fanzine (dojinshi) field, and she is publishing her representative "Ao no otoko series" [Man in Blue Series] simultaneously in both a commercial magazine and a fanzine. At present, Belne is serializing her "Itan bunsho" (Heretical Writings) in the magazine Nemuki (Asahi Shuppan). Under the pen-name Sorasaki Kanji, she provides the crucial ideas for Yamamoto Kazuki's "God hand Teru" and supervises the narrative development of this manga series which is running in Weekly Shonen Magazine (Kodansha). Since 2007 Belne has also held a lectureship at the Manga Faculty of Kyoto Seika University.

TSURU Daisaku

Born in 1968 in Okayama Prefecture.

After his graduation from Nagoya University's Department of Science, he completed his master course at Kyoto University, specializing in zoology. After conducting research on the traditional rituals and religion of collector-hunter tribes in Cameroon as a cultural anthropologist and ecologist, he obtained a doctoral degree in science in 2001. In 2003, he became associated professor in the Faculty of Humanities of Toyama University, and he also began his career as a manga artist, being awarded the Four Seasons Award of Kodansha's Afternoon magazine. In 2006, he began to publish his series "Nacun" (or "Nachun") in Monthly Afternoon, while continuing his work at university. As his artistic influences, he cites Otomo Katsuhiro and Moroboshi Daijiro. While especially concerned with the visualization of letters and the balance between narrative and images, Tsuru aims at creations which unfold the potential of both anthropology and manga. In 2010 he was appointed an associate professor of Manga Faculty, Kyoto Seika University.