Fumiko Takano is considered to be one of the manga artists of the "New Wave" of the late 1970s and early 1980s, when she started as a doujinshi artist and then drew short stories with an unconventional style for magazines like June and Petit Flower.
16 Facts About Fumiko Takano
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Fumiko Takano was a pioneer for female manga artists to publish outside of female-oriented publishing venues.
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Fumiko Takano was born in the countryside of Niigata Prefecture in 1957.
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Fumiko Takano didn't read many manga during her childhood, as none except few by Osamu Tezuka were available, and instead she read children's literature that she borrowed from the library.
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Fumiko Takano submitted a short story of her own to an amateur contest of Bessatsu Shojo Comic magazine, which Moto Hagio published her works in at the time, and received a prize.
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Fumiko Takano worked as a nurse for two years afterwards.
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Fumiko Takano started drawing doujinshi amateur manga, she participated in the Comiket and published her first short story Hana in 1977 in the zine Rakugakikan.
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Fumiko Takano published her first work as a professional manga artist in 1979 in June with the short story "Zettai Anzen Kamisori".
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Fumiko Takano drew two series, Lucky Jo-chan no Atarashii Shigoto and Ruki-san.
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Fumiko Takano continued publishing short stories in the magazine Petit Flower until the early 1990s.
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Fumiko Takano didn't publish any book after the release of Kiiroi Hon until Dimitri Tomkins was released first as a web comic and then as a book in 2014.
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Fumiko Takano published only relatively few works since then and is considered to be an exceptionally slow artist in the manga industry, as only seven books of hers have been published as of July 2023.
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Fumiko Takano's work is classified as part of a "New Wave" in the manga industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s, as some of it was published outside of gendered magazine structures, like in the anthologies of the Meikyu critic circle, and her style could not be easily classified.
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Fumiko Takano was one of the only women at the time who published manga outside of shojo manga and josei manga.
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Fumiko Takano's work has a fan community in Japan and has been acclaimed by manga critics.
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Fumiko Takano received the Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1982 for Zettai Anzen Kamisori and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize in 2003 for Kiiroi Hon.