User:Shikeishu/Ichiko Ima

Ichiko Ima (今 市子) is a Japanese manga artist. She is most famous for her horror manga series Hyakkiyakō Shō.

Life
She was born in rural Toyama Prefecture. Her grandmother would tell her scary stories before going to bed. She started reading manga through her sister, discovering Kazuo Umezu's horror manga and Masako Watanabe's Garasu no Shiro at an early age. She mostly read shōjo manga and came to appreciate Moto Hagio as her favorite artist. She started drawing manga in elementary school. In high school, she self-published her own Doujinshi. She graduated from Tokyo Woman's Christian University. At university she attended a manga club and learned techniques for drawing manga. After working as an assistant for other manga artists, she finally published her first work as a professional manga artist with the short story My Beautiful Green Palace in the magazine Comic Image in 1993.

She sold Doujinshi at the Comitia convention and the editor of what would become the horror manga magazine Nemuki discovered her work in a pile of unsold Doujinshi. In 1993, she published her first short story in a predecessor of the magazine, for which she would become a regular contributor. Her biggest commercial and critical success is the series Hyakkiyakō Shō, which runs in Nemuki since 1995. The series has also been published by Asahi Sonorama in 30 volumes (as of January 2023), which have been sold more than 5.8 million times. The series was awarded a Excellence Award at the Japan Media Arts Festival 2006 and was nominated for the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2005. The first six volumes of the manga have been translated into French and it is currently being published in Italian. An English translation titled Beyond Twilight was announced by Aurora Publishing in 2010, but it was never released due to the publisher's closure.

She has also published several boys love manga. She regularly contributes to the boys love magazine Hana Oto since the 1990s.

Works

 * Game (1993–1996, 1 volume)
 * My Beautiful Green Palace (マイ・ビューティフル・グリーンパレス, 1994, one-shot collection, 1 volume)
 * My Beautiful Green Palace (マイ・ビューティフル・グリーンパレス, 1993, published in Comic Image)
 * Ningyo no Hahen (1991)
 * Shouzou (1991)
 * Lumpty Stone (1989)
 * Saigo no Natsuyasumi (1990)
 * Yoru no Shizuku (1992)
 * Rokugatsubyou (1994)
 * Hyakkiyakō Shō (百鬼夜行抄, since 1995, serialized in Nemuki, published in 30 volumes)
 * Otona no Mondai (大人の問題, 1995–1997, serialized in Hana Oto, 1 volume)
 * Itsutsu no Hako no Monogatari (1995–1996, 1 volume)
 * Suna no Ue no Rakuen (砂の上の楽園, 1997, one-shot collection, 1 volume)
 * Suna no Ue no Rakuen (砂の上の楽園, 1996, published in Nemuki)
 * Boku wa Tabi wo suru (1994, published in Nemuki)
 * Ame ni Nareba Ii
 * Yoru no Mori no Soko ni (夜の森の底に, 1997, published in Nemuki)
 * Natsukashii Hana no Omoide (懐しい花の思い出, 1998, one-shot collection, 1 volume)
 * Natsukashii Hana no Omoide (懐しい花の思い出, 1994, published in Nemuki)
 * Natsufuku no Shōjo (1993, published in Nemuki)
 * Nemuri ni Tsuku Mae Gyuunyuu wo (1994, published in Nemuki)
 * Eudith no Kikan I
 * Eudith no Kikan II
 * Kamigami no Hana
 * Ashinaga-ojisantachi no Yukue (あしながおじさん達の行方, 1998–1999, serialized in Hana Oto, 2 volumes)
 * Bunchō-sama to Watashi (文鳥様と私, 1999–2000, 1 volume)
 * Kotō no himegimi (孤島の姫君, 2001, 1 volume)
 * Itoko Dōshi (いとこ同士, 2002, 1 volume)
 * Kishibe no Uta (岸辺の唄, since 2002, 9 volumes)
 * Homeless Salaryman (ホームレス・サラリーマン, since 2013, serialized in Hana Oto, 3 volumes)
 * Tanpopo ni Furu Ame (タンポポに降る雨, 2017, 1 volume)