Moto Hagio

Moto Hagio (萩尾 望都) is a Japanese manga artist.

Regarded for her contributions to shōjo manga (manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of all time, being referred to as the "god of shōjo manga" (少女漫画の神様) by critics.

Moto Hagio was born on May 12, 1949, in Ōmuta, Fukuoka.

The second of four siblings, Hagio's father worked as dockworker, while her mother was a homemaker.

Because of her father's job, the Hagio family moved frequently between Omuta and Suita in Osaka Prefecture.

Hagio began to draw at an early age in her spare time, and attended private art lessons with her older sister.

In her third year of elementary school, she began reading manga that she acquired at kashi-hon (book rental stores) and her school library.

Her parents discouraged her interest in illustration and manga, which Hagio states they viewed as "something for children not old enough to read" and "an impediment to studying"; this would be a major contributing factor to what would become a lifelong strained relationship with her parents.

During her childhood, Hagio read and became influenced by the works of manga artists Osamu Tezuka, Shōtarō Ishinomori, Hideko Mizuno, and Masako Watanabe, as well as literary fiction by Japanese authors such as Kenji Miyazawa and western science fiction and fantasy authors such as Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke, and Robert A. Heinlein.

She began to seriously consider a professional career in manga after reading Tezuka's manga series Shinsengumi in 1965, and in 1967 began submitting manga manuscripts to various publishers, including Kodansha, Shueisha, and Tezuka's own manga magazine COM.

In her senior year of high school Hagio met manga artist Makiko Hirata, who also lived in Ōmuta and was pursuing a professional career at Kodansha while still in high school.

After graduating, Hirata moved to Tokyo and offered to introduce Hagio to her editor, which Hagio accepted.

Hagio made her debut as a manga artist in 1969 at the publishing company Kodansha before moving to Shogakukan in 1971, where she was able to publish her more radical and unconventional works that had been rejected by other publishers.

Her first serializations at Shogakukan – the vampire fantasy The Poe Clan, the shōnen-ai (male-male romance) drama The Heart of Thomas, and the science fiction thriller They Were Eleven – were among the first works of shōjo manga to achieve mainstream critical and commercial success.

Hagio made her professional debut as a manga artist in Kodansha's Nakayoshi manga magazine, with the short stories Lulu to Mimi in August 1969 and Suteki na Mahō in September 1969.

Hagio began working for Nakayoshi under a new editor, but struggled under the editorial constraints of the magazine: Nakayoshi published primarily sports manga for children, while Hagio preferred to write science fiction and fantasy stories focused on mature themes and subject material.

Her next four manuscripts submitted to Nakayoshi were consequently rejected, with her editors instructing her to write stories that were "more interesting and cheerful".

Hagio subsequently emerged as a central figure in the Year 24 Group, a grouping of female manga artists who significantly influenced shōjo manga in the 1970s by introducing new aesthetic styles and expanding the category to incorporate new genres.

In 1970, Hagio published the one-shot (single-chapter) manga stories Cool Cat and Bakuhatsu Gaisha in Nakayoshi.

Shortly after her debut, Hagio began pen pal correspondence with Norie Masuyama, a fan of Hagio's who discovered her work through Nakayoshi.

Masuyama gifted Hagio a copy of the novel Demian by Hermann Hesse, an author whose novels came to greatly affect Hagio and significantly influenced her manga.

Contemporaneously, Hagio's editor assigned her to assist manga artist Keiko Takemiya, whose work had been published in Nakayoshi, COM, and Margaret.

The two artists became friends, and Takemiya suggested that they move to an apartment in Tokyo together; Hagio, who was still living with her parents in Ōmuta and unsure of her future as a manga artist, initially refused her invitation.

Shortly thereafter, Takemiya introduced Hagio to Junya Yamamoto, an editor at Shogakukan and editor-in-chief of the manga magazine Bessatsu Shōjo Comic.

Yamamoto agreed to publish Hagio's previously rejected manuscripts, and Hagio accepted Takemiya's offer to move to Tokyo.

In 1971, Hagio and Takemiya moved to a rented house in Ōizumigakuenchō, Nerima, Tokyo located near the home of Norie Masuyama.

During this period, Hagio published the shōnen-ai one-shot The November Gymnasium in 1971, followed by the vampire fantasy The Poe Clan in 1972, with the latter series becoming Hagio's first major critical and commercial success.

The Poe Clan was also the first series that Shogakukan published as a tankōbon (collected edition); the first tankōbon edition of The Poe Clan sold out its initial print run of 30,000 copies in three days, an unprecedented sales volume at the time for a shōjo manga series that had not been adapted into an anime.

Following a 1973 trip to Europe by Hagio, Masuyama, and Yamagishi, Takemiya announced that the Ōizumi Salon would cease, as she preferred to continue her career alone.

Decades later, both Hagio and Takemiya would disclose that the pair had a falling out in 1973 that remains unreconciled; Takemiya has written in her memoirs about feelings of jealously and an inferiority complex towards Hagio, while Hagio has written that their relationship was strained by accusations from critics that she plagiarized her shōnen-ai works from Takemiya.

Nonetheless, the innovation introduced to shōjo manga by the Year 24 Group significantly contributed to the development of the demographic, bringing it to what critics have described as its "golden age".

In the wake of the critical and commercial success of The Rose of Versailles by Year 24 Group member Riyoko Ikeda, Hagio's editor Junya Yamamoto asked her to create a series of similar length and complexity for publication in the manga magazine Shūkan Shōjo Comic.

Since the 1980s, Hagio has drawn primarily adult-oriented manga in the manga magazine Petit Flower and its successor publication Flowers, notably Marginal, A Cruel God Reigns, and Nanohana.

While Hagio primarily authors works in the science fiction, fantasy, and shōnen-ai genres, her manga explores a wide range of themes and subjects, including comedy, historical drama, and social and environmental issues.

She has been recognized with numerous awards both in Japan and internationally, including the Order of the Rising Sun, a Medal of Honor, and commendation as a Person of Cultural Merit.

Together, the three women decided to create a living space modeled off of 19th French literary salons, nicknamed the "Ōizumi Salon".

The Ōizumi Salon aimed to improve the quality and reputation of shōjo manga, a demographic which at the time was dismissed by critics as publishing frivolous stories for young children.

Numerous shōjo artists visited the Ōizumi Salon, including Shio Satō, Yasuko Sakata, Yukiko Kai, Akiko Hatsu, Nanae Sasaya, Mineko Yamada, Aiko Ito (manga artist), Michi Tarasawa, and Misako Nachi.

This grouping of artists would come to be referred to as the Year 24 Group.

The Year 24 Group contributed significantly to the development of shōjo manga by introducing new aesthetic styles and expanding the demographic to incorporate elements of science fiction, historical fiction, adventure fiction, and same-sex romance: both male-male (shōnen-ai and yaoi) and female-female (yuri).