Hisashi Eguchi

Who is Hisashi Eguchi?

Hisashi Eguchi is a Japanese manga artist. He is regarded as one of Japan's most prominent female character illustrators. He made his professional manga debut with Forward!! Pirates in the manga anthology Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1977. Other notable works include Stop!! Hibari-kun! and, more recently, the gag series Charamono. Eguchi married Japanese idol Mari Mizutani in 1990.

Hisashi began drawing at an early age, fascinated by the then-starting Japanese TV broadcasting. He got to know manga through Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy. During his childhood, other superheroes like Ultraman and Ultra Seven also gripped him.

In 1977, he won the Young Jump award for "Terrible children". That same year, his "Duel at half-past eight" was finalist at Akatsuka. The publication of Hisashi's baseball manga "Forward!! Pirates" followed in 1979 as a reward for winning the Young Jump contest.

After deciding to become a professional manga artist, Eguchi began drawing female characters: "I thought it was strange not to have girls. Also, I knew that it would be popular if the girls were cute". By the time he started Stop!! Hibari-kun!, there was a romantic comedy boom in shonen manga. However, his dislike of plotless stories made him emphasize a sarcastic tone, reflected not only with words but also by the cartoon itself: "the images too, they draw in a way that you can see that it is comedy manga right away".