is a female manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

 primarily known for her manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 works published in Japan

Japan

Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

 which feature LGBT

LGBT

LGBT is an initialism that collectively refers to "lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender" people. In use since the 1990s, the term "LGBT" is an adaptation of the initialism "LGB", which itself started replacing the phrase "gay community" beginning in the mid-to-late 1980s, which many within the...

 (especially about lesbian

Lesbian

Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...

 and transgender

Transgender

Transgender is a general term applied to a variety of individuals, behaviors, and groups involving tendencies to vary from culturally conventional gender roles....

) topics. Originally from Kanagawa

Kanagawa Prefecture

is a prefecture located in the southern Kantō region of Japan. The capital is Yokohama. Kanagawa is part of the Greater Tokyo Area.-History:The prefecture has some archaeological sites going back to the Jōmon period...

, she now resides in Tokyo

Tokyo

, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

. Her series Aoi Hana

Aoi Hana

, also known as Sweet Blue Flowers, is a Japanese yuri manga series written and illustrated by Takako Shimura. It began serialization in November 2004 in Ohta Publishing's Manga Erotics F manga magazine. The first bound volume was released in December 2005 in Japan; as of May 2011, six volumes have...

was adapted as an anime

Anime

is the Japanese abbreviated pronunciation of "animation". The definition sometimes changes depending on the context. In English-speaking countries, the term most commonly refers to Japanese animated cartoons....

 television series broadcast in 2009. Her series Wandering Son has been licensed in English by Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books

Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, graphic novels, and the adult-oriented Eros Comix imprint...

 and an anime adaptation which aired in 2011.

Works

(1997–2002, 7 volumes) (2003, one-shot) (2003, 1 volume)
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• • sweet16 (2002–2004, 2 volumes) (2002–2005, 3 volumes) (2002-ongoing, 11 volumes) (2004-ongoing, 5 volumes) (4 chapters, canceled) (2004–2005, 2 chapters) (adaptation of the Chiya Fujino
    Chiya Fujino
    is a Japanese writer of literary fiction. She has published several novels and short stories, and has been awarded three major Japanese literary prizes....
    
     novel, 2007–2008, 1 volume) (2009, one-shot) (2011-ongoing)

External links

• Takako Shimura's blog