Hinako Sugiura

Born Suzuki Junko in Minato ward, Tokyo, Sugiura Hinako was raised in a traditional family and enrolled in Nihon University to study design before abandoning school to formally study and research Japanese history. This period would later aid her historically accurate manga about Japan. At age twenty two and in 1980 she managed to get her story Tsugen Muro No Ume ('Trends And Artificial Beauty') printed in the manga magazine Garo. Her work was steeped in the tradition of Edo era artisans about whom she created. She won the Japan Cartoonists' Association Award in 1984. She became known for her work and published several more tomes, but opted to retire from that world in 1993 and focus on her research into Japanese history in general and the Edo period in particular She would write books on the subject and appear in the media as a subject matter expert. Author Aramata Hiroshi married and divorced her. She would be known for herself observing what she of which spoke including wearing kimono, eating traditional Japanese food items and drinking sake. She died due to throat cancer in 2005. She was forty seven years old. Sugiura's brother holds the rights to her work.