Mitsuo Hashimoto, born November 5, 1955 in Sayama, Saitama Prefecture, Japan, is a manga artist and the illustrator behind several long-running seinen and shonen manga series. He began his career in the mid-1970s after receiving an honorable mention at the 11th Tezuka Awards in 1976 for his work Mīnya no Negai. Hashimoto made his professional debut the following year in a special issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump with The Two Are Rivals. His most notable and defining work is Tsukiji Uogashi Sandaime, a cooking and drama manga serialized in Shogakukan's Big Comic magazine from November 2000 to April 2014, spanning 42 collected volumes. For this series, Hashimoto served exclusively as the artist, collaborating with a succession of writers: Ken'ichi Ōishi for the first volume, Masaharu Nabeshima for volumes two through twenty, and Kazuto Kuwa from volume twenty-one onward. The manga focuses on life and commerce within the famous Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo and follows a protagonist who becomes the third-generation owner of a wholesale fish business. The series proved popular enough to inspire a live-action film adaptation, which was released in Japan on June 7, 2008, directed by Shingo Matsubara and produced by the studio Shochiku. Beyond Tsukiji Uogashi Sandaime, Hashimoto's other manga credits as an artist include Itsumo Hōkago, Ganbare! Donbe, and Station, the latter of which was written by Ken'ichi Ōishi. He also collaborated with writer Yūji Nishi on Fūfu Seikatsu and Radio no Tantei. As a manga artist, Hashimoto is distinct from the anime director and storyboard artist of the same name who is known for his work on the Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump television series. The manga artist Hashimoto has published the majority of his work through Shogakukan, primarily in seinen magazines such as Big Comic and Big Comic Original, establishing a career defined by adapting written scenarios into serialized graphic fiction rather than originating his own stories.