26 Facts About Toshiko Ueda

Toshiko Ueda is, along with Machiko Hasegawa, one of the few female manga artists to begin their careers in the pre-war period.

Toshiko Ueda's time in Manchuria, from her idyllic childhood to the arrest and execution of her father during Japanese repatriation, was a significant influence on her manga.

Toshiko Ueda was still actively publishing her manga series Ako-Bachan at the time of her death at the age of 90.

Toshiko Ueda was born on August 14,1917, in Tokyo City.

Toshiko Ueda moved with her parents to Harbin, Manchuria several days after her birth, where her father worked as a businessman for the South Manchuria Railway Company.

Toshiko Ueda grew up in Harbin, where she lived with her parents, an older sister, a younger brother, and a servant, and learned to speak both Japanese and Chinese.

When Toshiko Ueda finished elementary school in 1929, she returned to Tokyo to study at the Shoei Girls' Junior and Senior High School.

In 1935, at the age of seventeen, Toshiko Ueda met Matsumoto through an acquaintance of her brother and convinced him to take her on as an apprentice.

Toshiko Ueda continued to create illustrations and manga for various magazines while living in Tokyo.

In Harbin, Toshiko Ueda worked for the South Manchuria Railway Company and later for a local newspaper, while working as a freelance poster illustrator.

Toshiko Ueda's father was executed after several days in detention, though the Toshiko Ueda family did not learn of his death until three years later.

From 1957 to 1962, Toshiko Ueda published the manga series Fuichin-san in the magazine Shojo Club, which would become her best-known work; the protagonist of the story was similarly the mascot of the magazine for the duration of its publication run.

The success of Boku-chan and Fuichin-san allowed Toshiko Ueda to contribute frequently to shojo magazines and the general press, though she remained generally less successful than her colleague and shojo pioneer Machiko Hasegawa.

On March 7,2008, Toshiko Ueda died from heart failure at her home in Tokyo at the age of 90.

Toshiko Ueda was still actively serializing Ako-Bachan at the time of her death.

Toshiko Ueda's manga is generally light-hearted, energetic, and humorous, with the artist stating that her repatriation from Manchuria taught her that "humor is the food of the mind".

Toshiko Ueda's works are typically slice of life stories with a comedic or educational tone, with the author stating that in order to create these works she kept abreast of current events, ranging from politics to sports to the price of supermarket products.

Toshiko Ueda reported frequently reading newspapers, spending time shopping, and talking to people in order to discover potential subjects for her manga.

Toshiko Ueda's style is distinct from that of Tezuka's, whose cinematic style of illustration characterized by closeups and cutbacks came to define the look of manga from the 1950s and beyond, as well as manga of the 1950s generally.

Outside of her manga, Toshiko Ueda spoke about her experience in Manchuria in the 1995 book Boku no Manshu, in which various manga artists discuss their experiences in the region and their repatriation.

Toshiko Ueda participated in the development of, and drew illustrations for, Ineko Sata's novel Omoki Nagare Ni; Sata is a friend of the Toshiko Ueda family, and based the novel on the family's history in Manchuria.

Toshiko Ueda was, along with Machiko Hasegawa, one of the few female manga artists to begin their careers in the pre-war period.

Toshiko Ueda was nonetheless an influential shojo manga artist of the 1950s and 1960s, with Fuichin-san enjoying a popularity similar to that of Princess Sapphire by Osamu Tezuka in the late 1950s.

Toshiko Ueda was awarded the 5th Shogakukan Manga Award in 1959 for Fuichin-san and Bonko-chan.

Toshiko Ueda won the Japan Cartoonists Association Award twice, receiving the Excellence Award in 1989 for Ako-Bachan, and the Minister of Education, Science and Technology Award in 2003 in recognition for her career as a manga artist.

Toshiko Ueda served as a jurist for the Yomiuri Shimbun Daily Manga Award five times.