Takehiko Inoue

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Takehiko Inoue (井上雄彦 Inoue Takehiko, born January 12, 1967) is one of the most famous Japanese manga artists. He has been drawing manga mainly in male-oriented magazines. Inoue's name is ordered as Takehiko Inoue on the Vagabond books sold in North America, while Slam Dunk books use Inoue Takehiko, but they are now out of print.

His works are: Chameleon Jail, Slam Dunk, Buzzer Beater, Vagabond (for which he received an Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 2002), and Real.

Before his debut, he was an assistant of Tsukasa Hojo in City Hunter.

His debut in manga magazines was in 1988, and Purple Maple appeared in the Shonen Jump magazine. His manga book debut was Chameleon Jail in 1989. His best known work is Slam Dunk, it has become a big influence in Japan, and this fame has gone overseas.

The next work he has produced is Buzzer Beater, and this manga can be found on the Internet. It appears on his official web site, and it has three language versions, Japanese, English, and Chinese. Buzzer Beater was produced into an anime in 2005 by the studio TMS Entertainment.

His serial manga now are Vagabond and Real. These manga have been one of the most published manga books in Japan. Many of his works are about basketball, and many Japanese children started to play basketball because they read the manga. This in turn helped make basketball popular in Japan.

Inoue also designed the characters for MistWalker's Lost Odyssey, an RPG to be released on the XBox 360.