Minami Ozaki

Minami Ozaki (尾崎南) is a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and illustrator of novels born on February 27, 1968 in Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan. She is famous for her best-selling manga series Zetsuai 1989, which is considered to have redefined the Shonen-ai/Yaoi genres in the late 80s/early 90s. Her real name is Ryo Minami (南亮), but in 1986 she became a fan of popular musician Yutaka Ozaki and changed her penname to Minami Ozaki. She sometimes uses other pseudonym — Minami Himemuro (姫室ミナミ).

In 1988 (at the age of 20), her first manga series, Chūsei no Akashi (Proof of Loyalty), was serialized in Margaret Comics.

Her success with Zetsuai 1989 has led Helen McCarthy to describe Ozaki as "one of the queens of shojo and shonen-ai manga". Through her Captain Tsubasa dojinshi, Ozaki "played a strong role" in "revamping the boys-love genre" in the 80s. Her hallmark is "prolonged erotic psychodramas" which has earned her a "cult following" through Margaret. Matt Thorn describes her as being a "mania-oriented" artist, with "extremely stylized" character designs and page layouts with a "dream-like quality". Her style had an enormous influence on later shojo writers.

List of works

 * Chūsei no Akashi, 1988
 * 3 Days, 1989
 * Zetsuai 1989, 1989
 * Bad Blood, 1992
 * Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989, since 1991
 * Yûwaku ni maketai, 1986

Doujinshi
Since 1984 Minami Ozaki has published a lot of yaoi doujinshi. The biggest circles are:
 * NTT
 * Calekka
 * Club Doll
 * Kreuz
 * Jûkkai
 * Asanuno Shutchôjo
 * Minami azabusho