Moto Hagio

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Moto Hagio (萩尾望都, Hagio Moto^?) is a female mangaka born on May 12, 1949 in Omuta City, Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan, though she currently lives in Saitama Prefecture. She is considered a "founding mother" of modern shōjo manga, especially shōnen-ai. She is also the member of Year 24 group.

Moto Hagio made her professional debut in 1969 at the age of 20 with the publication of her short story Lulu to Mimi in Nakayoshi. Later, for Shogakukan Publishing, she produced a series of short stories for various magazines. Two years after her debut, she published Juichigatsu no Gimunajiumu (The November Gymnasium), a short story which dealt openly with love between two boys at a boarding school. The story was part of a larger movement by female manga artists at the time which pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men. In 1974, Hagio developed this story into the longer Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas). She was awarded the Shogakukan Comics Award in 1976 for her science-fiction classic Juichinin Iru! and her epic tale Poe no Ichizoku.

Little of her work has been translated from the original Japanese. Following is a short list of those which have been translated:

A, A', which is currently in print and includes three stories entitled A, A' (A, A Prime), 4/4 (Quatre-Quarts), and X+Y parts one and two.

They Were 11, which is part of a compilation entitled Four Shojo Stories (currently out of print) which includes three other stories by two other artists. They Were 11 is available on VHS as an anime, in both dubbed and subtitled formats. Like most anime based on manga, there are various minor changes and omissions.

Hanshin, a short story, which was published in issue 269 of The Comics Journal alongside an interview with Moto Hagio conducted by Matt Thorn.

A, A' and They Were 11 have science fiction settings, and both They Were 11 and X+Y include transgender elements. The science fiction aspects in particular have led to Hagio's work appealing to manga readers who do not generally like shoujo manga.