Biography
Born in Placerville, CA, he grew up in Sacramento, CA before moving to the San Francisco Bay area for a number of years. In college, he majored in art and electronics, and began a career in computer graphics in 1990. After a few years doing presentation and web graphics, he transitioned into video games, and worked as artist, writer, art director, project manager or consultant on 21 different game titles, including The Incredibles: When Danger Calls, Mechwarrior 3, Zork: Nemesis and The Daedalus Encounter.
At the same time, he became involved in a number of writing projects, including the monthly Animata column for InterActivity magazine and books on 3D graphics. In the mid-nineties, he was attracted to the world of Japanese anime and manga, and amassed a large collection of books and DVDs. He even studied the language, and eventually started to work on adaptations of Japanese novels, manga and anime. While still at Mondo, he worked with anime legend Toshihiro Kawamoto of Cowboy Bebop fame on some character designs for an unreleased internet minishow. He also worked for Super Techno Arts (publisher of the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure anime series). Most recently, he had worked for Region Free (Japanese artist referral and contract translation service) where he worked on graphics and website work through his Binary Arts company.
Osamu Tezuka was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist and animator. Born in Osaka Prefecture, his prolific output, pioneering techniques and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such titles as "the Father of Manga", "the Godfather of Manga" and "the God of Manga". Additionally, he is often considered the Japanese equivalent to Walt Disney, who served as a major inspiration during Tezuka's formative years. Though this phrase praises the quality of his early manga works for children and animations, it also blurs the significant influence of his later, more literary, gekiga works.
J.C.Staff Co., Ltd. is a Japanese animation studio founded in January 1986 by Tomoyuki Miyata, who previously worked at Tatsunoko Production. The studio's first release was Yōtōden in 1987. They have produced several well-known anime series, such as Aria the Scarlet Ammo, Azumanga Daioh, Bakuman, the A Certain Magical Index franchise, Date A Live III, The Disastrous Life of Saiki K., Edens Zero, The Familiar of Zero, Fairy Tail: 100 Years Quest, Food Wars!: Shokugeki no Soma, Golden Time, Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?, Maid Sama!, Mewkledreamy, One-Punch Man seasons 2 and 3, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Slayers, Shakugan no Shana, and Toradora!.
Kotoko is a Japanese J-pop musician, singer, and songwriter from Sapporo, Hokkaido. She began her singing career in 2000, debuting as a member of the trance group I've Sound and releasing her first mini-album Sora o Tobetara that same year. She was then signed to the Rondorobe record label from 2004 to 2010, under which she released the albums Hane, Garasu no Kaze, Uzu-Maki and Epsilon no Fune. She signed to Warner Home Video in 2011, and remained with the label until 2018. She is currently signed with NBCUniversal Entertainment Japan.
Shakugan no Shana, also known simply as Shana (シャナ), is a Japanese light novel series written by Yashichiro Takahashi with illustrations by Noizi Ito. ASCII Media Works published 27 novels from November 2002 to November 2023 under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. The story focuses on Yuji Sakai, a high school boy who becomes involved in an age-old conflict between forces of balance and imbalance in existence; in the process, he befriends a fighter for the balancing force and names her "Shana". The series also incorporates fantasy and slice of life elements.
Noizi Ito is a Japanese light novel and video game artist. She is employed by the H-game maker UNiSONSHIFT and is a part of the circle Fujitsubo-Machine. Unlike most romanized Japanese words and names, Noizi Ito's name uses the Kunrei-shiki romanization form.
Karas is a Japanese six-part original video animation series. Tatsunoko Productions produced it to commemorate its 40th anniversary of anime production. Each Karas episode was first televised in Japan as a pay-per-view program from March 25, 2005, to August 3, 2007, before being released onto DVDs. Manga Entertainment compiled and released these episodes as two feature length, direct-to-DVD films for the English market.
Takashi Watanabe is a Japanese animator, storyboard artist, and director. He is best known for directing the anime series Slayers, Boogiepop Phantom, and Shakugan no Shana.
Yashichiro Takahashi is a Japanese novelist best known for the creation of the Shakugan no Shana series. Shakugan no Shana was adapted into a radio drama, manga, anime, and a video game. In addition, it was adapted into an anime film on April 21, 2007. Takahashi also made another series titled A/B Extreme, which won Honorable mention in the eighth Dengeki Novel Prize. Most of his work includes references to the tokusatsu Choukou Senshi Changéríon.
Phantom Blood is a 1987 manga series created by Hirohiko Araki, and the first part of the larger JoJo's Bizarre Adventure series. The manga was originally serialized by Shueisha in Weekly Shōnen Jump under the title JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 1 Jonathan Joestar: His Youth and was collected in five volumes; a three-volume collection was released by Shueisha in Japan in 2002, and by Viz Media in North America in 2014. The arc was serialized for more than 10 months; from January 1, 1987, to October 26 of that same year. It was followed by Battle Tendency.
Michael Arias is an American-born filmmaker active primarily in Japan.
Toradora! is a Japanese light novel series by Yuyuko Takemiya, with illustrations by Yasu. The series includes 10 novels released between March 10, 2006, and March 10, 2009, published by ASCII Media Works under their Dengeki Bunko imprint. Three volumes of a spin-off light novel series were also created, aptly titled Toradora Spin-off!. A manga adaptation by Zekkyō started serialization in the September 2007 issue of the shōnen manga magazine Dengeki Comic Gao!, published by MediaWorks. The manga ended serialization in Dengeki Comic Gao! with the March 2008 issue, but continued serialization in ASCII Media Works' manga magazine Dengeki Daioh with the May 2008 issue.
Dengeki Bunko Magazine (電撃文庫MAGAZINE) was a Japanese light novel magazine published by ASCII Media Works. The magazine succeeded the light novel magazine Dengeki hp, and originally was published as a special edition issue of Dengeki Daioh for the first two issues; the first issue was released on December 10, 2007. Dengeki Bunko Magazine became an independent magazine with the publication of its third volume on April 10, 2008. The magazine publishes information pertaining to ASCII Media Works' light novel publishing label Dengeki Bunko, along with short stories written by already established authors who have had previous light novels published under Dengeki Bunko. Other information pertains to adaptations from the light novels, such as video games, anime, or manga. The magazine ended on April 9, 2020.
Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus is a Japanese action role-playing video game developed by Pegasus Japan and published by ASCII Media Works for the Nintendo DS handheld video game console, and was first released in Japan on March 19, 2009, in limited and regular editions. An enhanced remake was released on the Nintendo DS in February 2011, titled Dengeki Gakuen RPG: Cross of Venus Special. The game was produced in commemoration of the fifteenth anniversary of ASCII Media Works' light novel imprint Dengeki Bunko. The player assumes the role of an unnamed protagonist attending Dengeki Academy who stumbles into a fight between heroines from Dengeki Bunko novel worlds and the evil organization Zetsumu. The reality-based world of Dengeki Academy and the novel worlds have become connected and the player is able to help the Dengeki Bunko heroines fight the Zetsumu by going between the worlds. Eight heroines are presented including Shana from Shakugan no Shana, Kino from Kino's Journey, and Kana Iriya from Iriya no Sora, UFO no Natsu. Each heroine fights with her own unique style of weapon, combos, and special attacks. The protagonist is designed by Kouhaku Kuroboshi, and his childhood friend Kizuna Kasugai is designed by Noizi Ito.
MediaWorks, Inc. was a Japanese publishing company in the Kadokawa Group known for their Dengeki brand magazines and book labels. These included such well-known magazines as Dengeki Daioh, and Dengeki G's Magazine, along with MediaWorks' main light novel publishing imprint Dengeki Bunko. The company was merged with ASCII on April 1, 2008, and became ASCII Media Works. They mainly catered to the Japanese male otaku crowd, covering such topics as anime, light novels, manga, plastic modelling, and visual novels. However, MediaWorks had published three magazines targeted towards females—Comic Sylph, Dengeki Girl's Style, and Character Parfait—but each one was a special edition version of another magazine. MediaWorks ran yearly contests for original novel and manga submissions, such as the light novel Dengeki Novel Prize contest.
Yasuko Kobayashi is a Japanese anime and tokusatsu drama screenwriter who has been involved in various television shows throughout her career, beginning in 1993 with Tokusou Robo Janperson.
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, also known as JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Animation, is a Japanese anime television series produced by David Production. An adaptation of the Japanese manga series of the same name by Hirohiko Araki, the series focuses on the mysterious adventures of the Joestar family across generations, from the end of the 19th century to the modern era. The series was first broadcast on Tokyo MX before entering syndication on 4 JNN stations, BS11, and Animax.
Land of the Lustrous is a 2017 anime television series based on Haruko Ichikawa's manga series of the same name. It is produced by the computer graphics (CG) animation studio Orange and directed and written by Takahiko Kyōgoku and Toshiya Ono, respectively. It follows the Lustrous – immortal humanoid life forms who are the embodiments of gemstones – who defend themselves against the Lunarians, who seek to harvest their bodies for decorations. Phosphophyllite is the youngest of the Lustrous, and is given the task to assemble a natural history since they are too brittle to fight.
Satoru Noda is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known as the creator of the manga series Golden Kamuy, for which he won the 2016 Manga Taishō and the 2018 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.
Kazuma Miki is a Japanese light novel editor. He is CEO of Straight Edge Inc, editor-in-chief of LINE novel, and outside director of Egg Firm. He is from the Tokushima prefecture. He graduated from Sophia University as a physics major.
