Toshio Sako
Toshio Sako (迫 稔雄, Sako Toshio) is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator. He is best known as the author of the manga Usogui and Batuque.
History
Born in Shimonoseki, Japan, Sako's parents encouraged him moved to Tokyo after graduating high school to pursue a career as a barber.[1] However, at around the age of 27, he decided to follow his passion and become a manga artist. Without any prior experience in manga, Sako voluntered as an assistant to Takeshi Hinata until he had the skills to create his own series.
In 2005, Sako won an Honorable Mention in the 48th Young Jump Monthly MANGA Grand Prix for his one-shot, Usogui. In 2006, Sako began serializing Usogui in Weekly Young Jump.[1] The manga became long-running and popular, finishing serialization in 2017 with a total of 49 volumes published. Following the success of Usogui, Sako started his next series, Batuque, which began serialization in 2018 and is still on-going. Despite working as a manga artist, Sako is notably very physically fit. He joined a Karate dojo in elementary school, and works out at a gym with mixed martial artist Hideo Tokoro, who he met through his work.[1] He also learned Capoeira, a Brazilian martial art that appears in his series Batuque.[1]
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure
On December 14, 2006, an interview between Hirohiko Araki and Sako was published in Weekly Young Jump to commemorate the release of the Phantom Blood film and the second volume of Usogui.[2][3] In the interview, Araki said he would like Usogui to receieve a film adaptation similar to JoJo, although it had only been a year since the series started serialization.[4]
Works
Gallery
Usogui by Araki
