Madoka Mako

Who is Madoka Mako?

Madoka Mako is the pen name of Misuzu Kato, a Japanese manga artist who specialises in the realistic gekiga style. Known for her evangelical themes and work, the Christian Comics International organisation credits her as a "Christian comics pioneer." Madoka Mako runs an illustration studio, Madoka Creation, located in the greater Tokyo area. Influenced by the works of Osamu Tezuka, Madoka Mako pursued to create comics in vein of films such as The Ten Commandments and Ben Hur. Madoka Mako started working as an assistant of an established secular gekiga artist and illustrated kami-sibai pictures for Sunday school materials.

Madoka Mako is probably best known for her gekiga Christian tracts, consisting of sixteen to thirty two pages, which she drew from 1970s to 1990s for International Chapel Ministries Press in Ikoma. A number of her work was aimed at young girls to provide help for issues such as prostitution and the occult. In the beginning of the 1990s, Madoka produced a series of 3 personal testimony comics for by Sinsei Undou/New Life League, entitled Heaven's Newscaster, A Wonderful Life and Touched by the Light. One of her works also include Glory to Jesus, a manga about the Japanese Christian psychedelic/funk rock group EIKO-GO/Electric Church.