Moto Hagio

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Moto Hagio (萩尾 望都 Hagio Moto?) is a manga artist born on May 12, 1949 in Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, though she currently lives in Saitama Prefecture. She is considered a "founding mother" of modern shōjo manga, especially shōnen-ai. She is also a member of the Year 24 Group.[1]

Moto Hagio made her professional debut in 1969 at the age of 20 with her short story "Lulu to Mimi" in Nakayoshi. Later, for Shogakukan Publishing, she produced a series of short stories for various magazines. Two years after her debut, she published Juichigatsu no Gimunajiumu (The November Gymnasium), a short story which dealt openly with love between two boys at a boarding school. The story was part of a larger movement by female manga artists at the time which pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men. In 1974, Hagio developed this story into the longer Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas). She was awarded the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1976 for her science fiction classic Juichinin Iru! (They Were Eleven) and her epic tale Poe no Ichizoku (The Poe Family).[2]

Contents

[edit] Works in English

Little of her work has been translated from Japanese. Following is a short list of those which have been translated:

  • A, A', which is currently out of print and includes three stories entitled A, A' (A, A Prime), 4/4 (Quatre-Quarts), and X+Y parts one and two.
  • They Were Eleven, which is part of the 1996 anthology entitled Four Shōjo Stories (currently out of print) which includes three other stories by two other artists. They Were Eleven is available on DVD as an anime, in both dubbed and subtitled formats. Like most anime based on manga, there are various minor changes and omissions.
  • Hanshin, a short story, which was published in issue 269 of The Comics Journal alongside an interview with Moto Hagio conducted by Matt Thorn.

A, A' and They Were Eleven have science fiction settings, and both They Were Eleven and X+Y include transgender elements. The science fiction aspects in particular have led to Hagio's work appealing to manga readers who do not generally like shōjo manga.

[edit] Video game works

Moto Hagio did the character designs for Quintet's video game Illusion of Gaia.

[edit] Awards

[edit] References

[edit] External links