Yumiko Ōshima


Yumiko Ōshima is a Japanese manga artist and is associated with the Year 24 group that heavily influenced the development of shōjo manga in the 1970s.

Career

She made her debut as a professional manga artist in 1968 with the short story "Paula no Namida" in the magazine Weekly Margaret. She became known for publishing short stories for this and other major magazines targeted at girls like Shōjo Comic, Bessatsu Shōjo Comic, Seventeen and Shōjo Friend. One of her short stories appeared in Funny, one of the earliest magazines for josei manga. Her series Tanjō!, published from 1970 until 1971, gained attention for its depiction of teenage pregnancy. From 1978 until 1987 she published her most famous series The Star of Cottonland in LaLa.

Style

According to Mizuki Takahashi, Ōshima is considered the most influential artist of the Year 24 group because of her visual innovation in shōjo manga, especially in panel design around representing emotions in drawing. Ōshima often places text that represents inner monologue outside of speech bubbles and instead flowing freely. She also was innovative in giving panels a delicate, thin frame that is at times even broken. Takahashi writes: "The panels are not sequential, which forces readers to look at the whole page in order to understand the atmosphere of a scene rather than just read ahead in the story."
Many of her stories are centered on girls' anxieties during adolescence, the difficulties of dealing with becoming an adult physically and emotionally and needing to suppress one's child self.

Reception and legacy

She received the 1973 Japan Cartoonists Association Award for excellence for Mimoza Yakata de Tsukamaete. She received the 1978 Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo for The Star of Cottonland, and the 2008 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Short Story Award for "Cher Gou-Gou...mon petit chat, mon petit ami," a short story in the ongoing series Gū-gū Datte Neko de aru. In 2021, she was honoured with the title Person of Cultural Merit.
She is credited with popularizing the kemonomimi character type through her creation of Chibi-neko from The Star of Cottonland.
Several artists have been influenced by her work. Manga artist Fusako Kuramochi and writer Banana Yoshimoto cite her as an influence. Manga critic Tomoko Yamada cites "Natsu no owari no totancho" as one of her favorite manga.

Selected works

Paula no Namida, 1968Tanjō!, 1970–1971Sakura Jikan, 1972Mimoza-yakata de Tsukamaete, 1973Joka e - An allegorical love triangle involving a boy who is accidentally transformed into a girlNazuna yo Nazuna, 1974Ichigo Monogatari, 1975Freud-shiki Ranmaru, 1975Shichigatsu Nanoka ni, 1976Banana Bread no Pudding, 1977–1978 - A story about a sensitive young woman, Ira Miura, who wishes to have a gay boyfriendThe Star of Cottonland, 1978–1987 - A story about a kitten, Chibi-neko, who thinks she is a little girlAkasuika Kisuika, 1979Kinpatsu no Sōgen, 1983Mainichi ga Natsuyasumi, 1989Koi wa Newton no Ringo, 1990Christmas no Kiseki, 1995
  • ''Gu-Gu Datte Neko de Aru, 1996–ongoing