Kyoko Okazaki is a Japanese manga artist. Okazaki often focuses on urban Japanese life in Tokyo from the 1980s and 1990s. Okazaki's characters are bold and freewheeling, holding unconventional sets of values. Her writings are often studded with modern jargon. Okazaki is one of the early forebears of the gyaru manga style.
Life and career
In 1983, while studying at Atomi Junior College, Okazaki made her debut in Manga Burikko, an erotic manga magazine primarily aimed for male adults. In 1985, after graduating from college, she published her first manga Virgin, and in 1989, she wrote Pink, which firmly established her reputation as a manga artist. In 1989, she released the workPink, which is about an office worker in her early 20s who works as a call girl at night in order to help support her pet crocodile. Okazaki also worked on the series Tokyo Girls Bravo, which was published in CUTIE, a mainstream Japanese fashion magazine aimed at teens. In 1992, she released Happy House, which is about a 13-year-old daughter of a television director and actress, who are often too busy to care for her children. When the teenager faces the possible divorce of her parents, she does not want to live with her father or mother, because she feels that she cannot be happy with either one of them. Instead, she dreams of leaving her home to live alone and earn her own money so she can emancipate herself from her parents. In 1994, Okazaki put on a solo exhibition at the grand opening of the experimental art space, P-House, in Tokyo. From 1993 to 1994, she did a serialization called River's Edge and portrayed the conflicts and problems experienced by high-schoolers living in a suburb in Tokyo. This series had a big influence on the literary world. Okazaki is a fashion illustrator, and her manga illustrates the cutting-edge fashion and customs of Japan during the 1980s and 1990s. Okazaki's manga describes the loneliness and emptiness that characterizes this time period. In 2003, she worked on Helter Skelter, which features a beautiful model, Ririko, whose body underwent a total cosmetic surgery, and illustrates the accelerating derailment of her success. Here, Okazaki exposes with much reality, the obsession, jealousy, and deprivation caused by the desire to acquire “beauty” and the overpowering economic and commercial circumstances surrounding such desire.
Personal life
Kyoko Okazaki was born in 1963 in Tokyo. She lived in a family extended to fifteen people. Her father was a hairdresser and held a large drawing room. The whole family lived there together: grandparents, uncles and aunts, cousins, and even apprentice hairdressers. Okazaki often wondered what the family and the home can represent in these conditions. While living in a happy and peaceful environment, she has not been able to feel at ease in this large family. In May 1996, Okazaki was hit by a drunk driver and sustained severe injuries, and went on hiatus to rehabilitate. Her previous works continued to be published.
