Ai Yazawa

Ai Yazawa (矢沢あい, Yazawa Ai^?) is a popular Japanese josei manga artist, born on March 7, 1967 in Osaka, Japan. This pseudonym comes from the Japanese singer Eikichi Yazawa, of whom he confesses to be a fan.

Career

Yazawa began his career as a mangaka in 1985 at the age of 17. For 15 years she published more than 10 series in the magazine Ribon. Although many of its mangas continue to be published in Japan by the publisher Shueisha, which publishes the magazines Ribon and Cookie (in which NANA was serialized), currently they appear in other magazines, such as Zipper, published by Shodensha.

His best-known mangas are Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai ("I am not an angel"), Gokinjō Monogatari ("Neighborhood Stories" #34;), Paradise Kiss and NANA. The last two have been published in the United States, and some of his work has also been published in France, Italy, Mexico, Spain and Argentina. There is a live-action film of Nana starring Mika Nakashima and Aoi Miyazaki, as well as an anime series released on April 5, 2006 on the NTV network. The first season was made by the animation production company Madhouse and had 47 episodes (which are the adaptation of the first 42 chapters of the manga).

Yazawa's works are popular mainly among women and teenagers. The stories focus on young girls, their relationships, and the world around them. Yazawa pays a lot of attention to fashion, which is reflected when designing his characters, some of them notably unique and rebellious, which are juxtaposed to the more traditional ones. Since 2009 he has been working on finishing the NANA manga , which would correspond to the second season of an anime that has been expected for a long time, but Yazawa suffered an illness that did not allow him to finish the story. However, Yazawa has not resumed the serialization of the Nana Komatsu story and Nana Osaki, this has been clarified in a couple of pages in the magazine where he publishes.

Works

Manga

• Futari no Seaside Park
• RabuuRetaa
• Sora wo Aogu Hana
• Ano Natsu (1985)
• 15-nenme (1986)
• Kaze and Nare! (1988)
• Esukepu (1988)
• Ballad Made Soba and ite (1989) – 2 volumes
• Marine Blue No Kaze Ni Dakarete (1990-1991) - 4 volumes
• Usubeni no Arashi (1992)
• Tenshi Nanka Ja Nai (1992-1995) - 8 volumes
• Gokinjō Monogatari (1995-1998) - 7 volumes
• Kagen no Tsuki (1998-1999) – 3 volumes
• Paradise Kiss (2000-2004) – 5 volumes
• NANA (2000-2009) – 21 volumes (hiatus)

Others

• Adidas Manga Fever (2002) – illustration
• Princess Ai (2004-2006) – character design