Fuyuhiko Okabe was a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, and original creator active from the postwar era through the early 2000s. He was born on December 27, 1922, in Tokyo, and graduated from the Tokyo School of Art. He was the brother of fellow artist and animator Kazuhiko Okabe. His career spanned multiple disciplines, including satirical illustration, manga, and animation production, and he was recognized for introducing elements of black humor to Japanese comics. Okabe passed away from a heart attack on May 16, 2005.

Okabe’s career included several notable original works that received significant recognition and adaptations. In 1955, his manga Mr. Atsukama was adapted into a film, marking an early crossover into cinema. His most acclaimed works emerged in the early 1960s; he received the prestigious Bungeishunjū Manga Award in 1961 for his series Acchan and Baby Gang. Baby Gang was particularly successful, also being adapted into a film the same year it won the award. The character designs he created gained substantial visibility beyond publishing, as he was responsible for creating the character Atchan, also known as Sony Boy, which served as the mascot for Sony Corporation in its advertising beginning in 1956.

Beyond his award-winning manga, Okabe’s bibliography includes Speed Boy, a comedy series serialized in Shogakukan’s Shōgaku 1 Nensei magazine in 1958. His body of work also includes the children’s story Kikansha Yaemon, for which he is credited as an original author in the context of its anime adaptation. Throughout his career, he alternated between creating comics, illustrations, and written essays. His artistic identity was marked by a satirical and often minimalist approach to drawing, with works frequently touching on social commentary and everyday life through a lens accessible to younger audiences. His influence extended into the next generation, as his daughters, Rika Okabe and Mizutama Keinojo, also became illustrators and manga artists.