Kyoko Okazaki

Kyoko Okazaki (岡崎 京子) is a Japanese mangaka whose manga are popular for their unorthodox style and controversial topics, such as sex, sadomasochism, drugs, homosexuality, rape, murder, and prostitution. The Tokyo-born Okazaki often focuses on urban Japanese life in the capital from the 1980s and 90s from a female perspective. Her writings are also studded with modern jargon. Okazaki's manga are not typical, in that while it is a part of the "shōjo manga" (girl manga) genre, her works are not conservative enough to fit the typical shojo manga genre completely. Okazaki, along with mangaka, Shungiku Uchida, are two examples of today's leading female manga artists, who contributed to the rise of a new style of manga, known as "gyaru manga" (gyaru translates to "gal" - this genre of manga is aimed towards a more "liberal" crowd, who, too, are interested in a love story about a beautiful young girl, but are also interested in topics to do with sex, drugs, prostitution, etc.)

Life and career
Okazaki was born in Shimokitazawa, Setagaya, Tokyo, Japan. Okazaki grew up in Tokyo in a large household, of around fifteen people. Okazaki's father was a talented barber. The whole family lived together: grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins and even apprentice hairdressers. Okazaki failed to feel completely comfortable in this extended family.

In 1983, while studying in Atomi University, Okazaki made her debut in Cartoon Burikko, an erotic manga magazine primarily aimed for male adults. In 1985, while still a university student, she also published her first manga, Virgin. After this, Okazaki wrote Pink in 1989, which firmly established her reputation as a manga artist. Some time during the 1980s, Okazaki's also wrote a long running series called Tokyo Girls Bravo in CUTIE (a mainstream Japanese fashion magazine), which was highly successful. In 1994, Okazaki put on a solo exhibition at the grand opening of the experimental art space, P-House, in Tokyo. From 1993 to 1994, she did a serialization called River's Edge, in which she portrayed the conflicts and problems experienced by high-schoolers living in a Tokyo suburb; the series had a big influence on the literary world.

Okazaki is also an impressive fashion illustrator, and her manga illustrates the cutting edge fashion and customs of Japan during the 1980s and 90s. Okazaki's manga also vividly describes the loneliness and emptiness that was present during this time period. After the 1980s, Japan and its foremost symbol, Tokyo, were overflowing with goods and information. Greed and desire colored the nation. Okazaki was one of the rare manga artists to successfully capture the mentality of the young people who lived during this period in a realistic manner.

For Helter Skelter, she won the 2003 excellence prize at the Japanese Media Arts Festival, and the 2004 Osamu Tezuka Culture Prize.

Her work has been translated into Chinese, German, and French.

On May 19, 1996, Okazaki was hit by a drunk driver while out on a walk, and as a result, suffered severe physical and mental injuries. She is currently undergoing rehabilitation. She has not announced any new manga, however, her previous manga continue to be published and even now in the 21st century, her stories remain as sharp as ever.

Pink ピンク (1989)
Pink is a manga about a Japanese girl named Yumi, a beautiful girl in her early 20's. During the day, Yumi works as a regular office lady (オーエル), but by night, she works as a prostitute. Yumi needs her two jobs to make ends meet. She also needs the extra income to feed her unusual pet, a crocodile, which she keeps in her apartment. Working in an office is quite normal for young Japanese women, but keeping a pet crocodile, and being a prostitute makes Yumi stand out. In truth, few girls are like Yumi, however, many readers can empathize with her. Young women love their "something", symbolized by her pet crocodile, and they can also identify with Yumi's "wild at heart" nature.

Happy House ハッピィ・ハウス (1990-1991)
Happy House is a manga-series from July 1990 to October 1991 in Comic Giga, a monthly journal. In Happy House, Okazaki portrays how the economic boom in Japan of the late 1960s had profoundly changed the behavior of Japan. More and more Japanese women had started working, and in the mid 1970s, many were more likely to keep their career after marriage or even after childbirth. Women began to express independence, refuse the traditional role of being a housewife, and divorce became more common. The heroine in Happy House is a thirteen-year-old girl. Her father is a television director and her mother is an actress, who is often too busy to care for her children. When the teenager faces the possible divorce of her parents, she does not want to live with her father or mother, because she feels that she cannot be happy with either one of them. Instead, she dreams of leaving her home to live alone and earn her own money so she can emancipate herself from her parents.

River's Edge リバーズ・エッジ (1993-1994)
River's Edge is a very deep and refreshing manga that presents a side of life not typically seen in manga. The story takes place in a suburban housing area in Tokyo, constructed during the period of high economic growth, and the series takes a very realistic look at the tough life of a number of high school teens in a small city. It deals with a number of real life issues such as homosexuality, rape, and murder. Troubled characters include a teen that is always treated like a social outcast, a sad young girl who becomes a slut, as well as several others, each suffering in their own individual way. A relatively conventional setting at first glance, betrays the reader’s expectation as the manga follows one of the character’s blank gaze on a corpse found in the grass of a nearby riverbed, without neither signs of fear nor reality. The emergence of the new generation – the so called "Shin-Jinrui" (新人類), which literally translates to "new human species" in Japanese, the bubble economy (バブル経済) and its burst/destruction, and the incident involving Tsutomu Miyazaki (宮崎勤) (Miyazaki killed 4 young girls by between 1988 and 1989, and became to be known as the "otaku" (オタク) murderer) are some phenomena of the period which signified the disintegration of the social cohesion, until then held together by the universally shared vision and values in reconstructing and modernizing the nation. In River's Edge, Okazaki firmly established her position as a manga artist by acutely depicting the emptiness of modern Japanese life.

Helter Skelter ヘルタースケルター (1995-1996)
Helter Skelter features a beautiful model, Ririko, whose body underwent head-to-toe cosmetic surgery, and illustrates the accelerating derailment of her success. Years and yens of plastic surgery turned top celebrity Ririko into a beauty icon. However, as her body starts to show signs of deterioration, she descends into despair and becomes recklessly determined to make other people's lives as miserable as hers. In addition, Ririko must also face the appearance of a younger and fresher face at her modelling agency, the engagement of her rich lover, and constantly living up to the pressure of her stage mom, who is also her manager.