Yoko Kamio

Yōko Kamio (神尾 葉子) is a popular Japanese manga artist and writer. She is most famous for Boys Over Flowers (花より男子), for which she received the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1996. Her work has been translated and distributed in Asia, Europe, and North America.

Biography
Yōko Kamio readily admits that she had no intention of becoming a professional manga artist when she was young. Kamio originally went to secretarial school, but her love of drawing soon led her astray. She then eventually entered the professional mangaka field in 1989. In the following years, Kamio published Suki Suki Daisuki, Ano Hi ni Aitai, and Meri-san no Hijitsu in Margaret before she finally created Hana Yori Dango in 1992.

Hana Yori Dango
The Hana Yori Dango manga became established relatively quickly in Japan. Many people commended Kamio for her realistic portrayal of high school life and everyday violence through the Hana Yori Dango series. Although Kamio was initially surprised by the confessions of high school violence stated in fan letters, she realized that Tsukushi's fiery character served as a role model for much of Japan's youth and helped others cope with school violence.

Kamio watched as the success of Hana Yori Dango's 1992 début followed through with many more months on the best-sellers list. Voice CDs by SMAP and a live action movie about Hanadan charted the series success in the mid-1990s. By 1995, an animated series for Hana Yori Dango was already in progress and Kamio had also helped pick main leads for the anime show.

Hana Yori Dango ran in the Japanese Margaret magazine as well as the Korean Wink. The series has also been published in Japanese, Chinese, Cantonese, Thai, Korean, French, and English. The anime series has been broadcasted in Japan, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Italy, and has also been licensed and released in the United States. Additionally, it was also recreated in a Game Boy Color game (only released in Japan) during the summer of 2001. With its ever-increasing popularity, Hana Yori Dango was then made into a popular live action TV series in Taiwan titled Meteor Garden. The manga series finally ended in Margaret's August 2003 issue, and the 36th tankōbon which included the Akira special "Night of the Crescent Moon" was released in January 2004 as the manga's final volume.

While Yoko Kamio initially wanted Hanazawa Rui to be the main hero of Hana Yori Dango, due to the outstanding personality of Domyoji Tsukasa (and Domyoji also becoming more popular than Rui) she changed the hero role to Domyoji.

Despite Hana Yori Dango's success, Kamio had originally planned to end the series by Spring 2000. However, in February 2000, at a mangaka conference in Taipei, Taiwan Kamio announced that she would continue writing Hana Yori Dango. At one point, she got so wrapped up in the Hana Yori Dango storyline, that she confessed to having dreams about Doumyouji. Of course, she said that "Falling in love with a character that I created is just disgusting..."

After Boys Over Flowers
Kamio's next project, Cat Street, is another shōjo drama/romance published by Shueisha and serialized in Monthly Bessatsu Margaret (Betsuma), with the first collected tankōbon volume released in April 25, 2005. The manga was completed in eight volumes.

A story story sequel to Boys Over Flowers was published in the 2006 issue 15 of Margaret magazine, showing an update on the adventures of the main characters Tsukushi Makino and the F4. In one of the first volumes of Cat Street, Yoko Kamio had stated that she was planning a sequel to Boys Over Flowers.

Kamio's next series was Matsuri Special, which debuted in the first issue (November 2007) of Jump Square, a shōnen manga magazine. It is about a high school girl whose father has trained her to become a female professional wrestler.

Her most recent series is Tora to Okami which runs in Betsuma magazine.