Yumiko Ōshima (大島弓子, Ōshima Yumiko, born August 31, 1947) is a Japanese manga artist and is associated with the Year 24 group that heavily influenced the development of shōjo manga in the 1970s.[1][2]
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 (then called "women's gekiga").[3] Her series Tanjō!, published from 1970 until 1971, gained attention for its depiction of teenage pregnancy.[4] From 1978 until 1987 she published her most famous series The Star of CottonlandinLaLa.[5]
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."[6]
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.[6]
She is credited with popularizing the kemonomimi (catgirl) character type through her creation of Chibi-neko from The Star of Cottonland.[10]
Several artists have been influenced by her work. Manga artist Fusako Kuramochi[11] and writer Banana Yoshimoto cite her as an influence.[12] Manga critic Tomoko Yamada cites "Natsu no owari no totancho" (1977) as one of her favorite manga.[11]
