Chiisakobee Volume 1: Chiisakobee

Minetaro Mochizuki is a prolific, celebrated manga author-illustrator known for manga titles Dragon Head, Zashiki Onna, and the manga adaptation of the Wes Anderson film Isle of Dogs. His works Bataashi Kingyo, Dragon Head, and Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl have been adapted into pulp films. He received a Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Award for Excellence, Award for General Manga at the 21st Kodansha Manga Award, and for Chiisakobee, he received an Excellence Award at the 17th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2013 and the prestigious Fauve D’Angoulême: Prix de la Série at the 2017 Angoulême International Comics Festival. He cites heta-uma styles as influence and follows the cult legacy of popular alternative-manga magazine Garo. Mochizuki’s own distinct New Wave style has had profound influence on manga authors succeeding him. He is an avant-garde trendsetter in the manga world.

Shimizu Satomu, better known by the penname Shūgorō Yamamoto, is a Japanese novelist and short-story writer prolific during the Shōwa period of Japan. Despite the Yamamoto Shūgorō Prize being named after him, he modestly refused prestige in his lifetime, noting that his writing for a popular audience should not be considered literature. His works may be known for adaptation such as the Akira Kurosawa film Sanjuro, an adaptation of the short story Nichinichi hei-an (Peaceful Days), and Dodes’ka-den, an adaptation of the book Kisetsu no nai machi (The Town Without Seasons). Cult director Takashi Miike also adapted the novel Sabu into film.