Ryoko Yamagishi

Ryoko Yamagishi (山岸 凉子) is a Japanese manga artist. She is one of the Year 24 Group, a collection of female artists who innovated shōjo (girls') manga throughout the 1970s. Her major works include Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi and Maihime Terpsichora.

Life and career
Ryoko Yamagishi was born on September 24, 1947, in Kamisunagawa, Hokkaido, Japan. As a child, she studied ballet, which plays a part in many of her works. When she read the manga of Machiko Satonaka in 1964, she decided to pursue becoming a manga artist. Although her parents did not agree with this, in 1966 she entered a competition in Shōjo Friend and was a semi-finalist. She applied to Kodansha and sent some short stories to COM. In 1968, after completing her art studies in Hokkaido, she moved to Tokyo and applied for Shueisha. The next year, she made her professional debut with Left and Right, a short story published in Ribon Comic, a spin-off of Ribon.

In 1971, she released the one-shot manga Shiroi Heya no Futari, which tells the story of a romance between two students at an all-girls boarding school in France. It was published by Shueisha in Ribon Comic and is regarded as the first yuri (female-female romance) manga.

Style and themes
Her works normally have occult themes, although her most popular are Arabesque, about Russian ballet, and Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi. According to Yoshihiro Yonezawa, Yamagishi's style is influenced by Art Nouveau.

Reception
In 1983, she won the Kodansha Manga Award in the shōjo manga category for Hi Izuru Tokoro no Tenshi.

She worked on Maihime Terpsichora, which was nominated for the 9th annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2005 and won the 11th annual Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2007. It was also among the jury-selected works of Japan Media Arts Festival 2002.

Her work was exhibited at the Yayoi Museum in Tokyo from September to December 2016.

Art books

 * + List of art books by Ryoko Yamagishi