Mine Yoshizaki is a Japanese manga creator. His most well known works are Sgt. Frog, a manga he created which later received an anime adaption, and Kemono Friends, a multimedia franchise for which Yoshizaki serves as concept designer.
Career
Yoshizaki was born in Isahaya, Nagasaki. As a graduate student of Nagasaki University, he started from drawing his own dōjinshi, based on video games that were famous at that time. With that dōjinshi, he practiced and improved his drawing skills day by day. Yoshizaki said that his experience in drawing dōjinshi was the most priceless experience that he ever had. According to him, making dōjinshi gave him the opportunity to seek through the world of the manga industry, with all aspects from drawing to producing. This allows him to do all the work, rather working in a big-scale production company that lets him work in one particular branch. Yoshizaki later worked as an assistant to manga artistKatsu Aki. His first publication was featured in a compilation book published by Shogakukan in 1989. He is best known for his manga Keroro Gunso, published as Sgt. Frog in the United States, which was first published in the Japanese manga magazineShōnen Ace. He is also the creator of Arcade Gamer Fubuki and did character design on the series Seven of Seven. In 2005, Sgt. Frog received the 50th Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga. Due to various Gundam references, an ongoing Sgt. Frog anime was produced by Bandai. This led to Yoshizaki collaborating on certain Gundam projects, such as designing the mascot girls Reiko Holinger and Catharine Blitzen for the Gundam Card Builder game. He has also been the designer of the Angel-XX figurine series from Neon Genesis Evangelion. He provided character designs for the 1999 PlayStation video game Pop'n Tanks. He later was a character designer for the Konami Gradius-type shooter Otomedius. This is significant because, instead of simply moving a fighter craft around, the player controls a unique character bound within a vehicle. He has also designed a playable character called Angol Fear to the fighting gameSoulcalibur IV. He also is credited as concept designer for the Kemono Friends franchise, including the anime series.
