Yasuhisa Hara
Yasuhisa Hara (原 泰久, Hara Yasuhisa) is a Japanese manga artist and engineer, best known for his long-running series, Kingdom, currently published in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump magazine with over 95 million volumes in circulation.[3] He is also notable for being a former assistant to manga artist Takehiko Inoue, and is good friends with Hirohiko Araki.
Biography
Hara was born in the town of Kiyama within the Miyaki District of Saga, Japan. Growing up, he would attend Tomeikan Junior & Senior High School before applying for the Kyushu Institute of Design. While in college, Hara would begin his journey as a manga artist in 1999 with his doujinshi titled "Otomatsu", which won semi-grand prize in Young Magazine's Tetsuya Chiba Awards. In 2000, Hara would receive his Masters in Communications and immediately join the Fujitsu corporation as a systems engineer. He notes being overworked during this period of his life, particularly when his senior programmer left the company, however the experience and mistakes he went through have added a certain depth to his works.[4]
Hara would eventually begin serialization of his series, Kingdom, in the 9th issue of Weekly Young Jump 2006.[5] The series ranked fairly poor in reader surveys early on, but was able to take off after Hara made adjustments to his style through advice from his mentor, Takehiko Inoue. As of January 2023, the manga has over 95 million copies in circulation, making it one of the best-selling manga series of all time. In 2012, the series was adapted into a four-season anime by Studio Perriot and has since then received multiple animated seasons, films and video games. In 2013, Kingdom won the grand prize at the 17th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize event and in the same year, Hara would be appointed the first ambassador of his hometown, Kiyama.[2]
Hara's Kingdom would earn a Guinness World Record on December 12, 2012 for Manga written by the most people. The record was the result of a "Social Kingdom" campaign in which fans and other artists collaborated to draw the entire 26th volume. Participants included JoJo's Bizarre Adventure creator, Hirohiko Araki, and other manga creators like Eiichiro Oda, Masashi Kishimoto, and Hiroshi Motomiya.[5][6]
Works
Gallery
Hara out drinking with Araki, Motoo Abiko (Doraemon), Toshio Sako (Usogui) and Tetsuya Chiba (Ashita no Joe)
Hara working on Kingdom
Hara and Takehiko Inoue Interview
Kingdom Preview Booklet with Blurb from Araki
Kingdom Volume 1
Shin by Hara for 40th anniversary of Fist of the North Star
References
- ↑ https://www.asahi.com/special/kingdom2021/
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 https://www.town.kiyama.lg.jp/kiji003622/index.html
- ↑ https://twitter.com/kingdom_yj/status/1613473946011316225
- ↑ https://style.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO42769540S9A320C1000000/
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 https://natalie.mu/comic/pp/kingdom
- ↑ Asahi Shimbun - Kingdom wins Guinness World Record
