is a 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...

ese 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...

, cartoonist and illustrator of novels born on February 27, 1968 in Kanagawa Prefecture

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...

, 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...

. She is famous for her best-selling 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...

 series Zetsuai 1989

Zetsuai 1989

is a Japanese yaoi manga known for its melo-dramatic, almost operatic plot, its "semi-insane characters", and for the controversial style of its artwork. The word "Zetsu-ai" is a compound created by Minami Ozaki which has been translated as "desperate love". Ozaki's preferred English translation is...

, which is considered to have redefined the Shōnen-ai/Yaoi

Yaoi

In careful Japanese enunciation, all three vowels are pronounced separately, for a three-mora word, . The English equivalent is . also known as Boys' Love, is a Japanese popular term for female-oriented fictional media that focus on homoerotic or homoromantic male relationships, usually created by...

 genres in the late 80s/early 90s. Her old penname is , but in 1986 she changed her penname to Minami Ozaki. She sometimes uses other pseudonym

Pseudonym

A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...

 — .

In 1988 (at the age of 20), her first manga series, Chūsei no Akashi (Proof of Loyalty), was serialized in Margaret Comics.

Her success with Zetsuai 1989 has led Helen McCarthy

Helen McCarthy

Helen McCarthy is the British author of such anime reference books as 500 Manga Heroes and Villains, Anime!, The Anime Movie Guide and Hayao Miyazaki: Master of Japanese Animation. She is the co-author of The Erotic Anime Movie Guide and the exhaustive The Anime Encyclopedia with Jonathan Clements...

 to describe Ozaki as "one of the queens of and manga". Through her Captain Tsubasa

Captain Tsubasa

, also known as Flash Kicker, is a popular long running Japanese manga, animation, and video game series, originally created by Yōichi Takahashi in 1981...

 dojinshi, Ozaki "played a strong role" in "revamping the boys-love genre" in the 80s. Her hallmark is "prolonged erotic psychodrama

Psychodrama

Psychodrama is a method of psychotherapy in which clients utilize spontaneous dramatization, role playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. psychodrama includes elements of theater, often conducted on a stage where...

s" which has earned her a "cult following" through Margaret. Matt Thorn

Matt Thorn

Matt Thorn is a cultural anthropologist and an Associate Professor in the Department of Manga Production at Kyoto Seika University's Faculty of Manga in Japan. He is most well known in North America for his work dealing with shōjo manga. He has appeared at multiple anime conventions, including...

 describes her as being a "mania-oriented" artist, with "extremely stylized" character designs and page layouts with a "dream-like quality". Her style had an enormous influence on later shōjo writers.

List of works

• Chūsei no Akashi, 1988
• 3 Days, 1989
• Zetsuai 1989
  Zetsuai 1989
  is a Japanese yaoi manga known for its melo-dramatic, almost operatic plot, its "semi-insane characters", and for the controversial style of its artwork. The word "Zetsu-ai" is a compound created by Minami Ozaki which has been translated as "desperate love". Ozaki's preferred English translation is...
  
  , 1989
• Bad Blood, 1992
• Bronze: Zetsuai Since 1989, since 1991

Doujinshi

Since 1984 Minami Ozaki has published a lot of yaoi doujinshi. The biggest circles are:

• NTT
• Calekka
• Club Doll
• Kreuz

External links

• Official website (Japanese)