Cota Tomimura
Description
Cota Tomimura is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator born in 1990 in Okinawa Prefecture. She graduated from the design department at Tokyo Metropolitan Technical High School and worked at a design firm and a web production company before beginning her freelance career. Her debut work was the autobiographical manga Jitsuroku! Tōsan Densetsu, which depicted her father’s confession about appearing in gay videos.
Tomimura is best known as the illustrator for the series Gal & Dino, also known as My Roomie Is a Dino. The manga was written by Moriko Mori, who is also Tomimura’s spouse. The series was serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine from October 2018 to January 2022 and compiled into seven tankōbon volumes. The story follows a gyaru named Kaede who wakes up after a night of drinking to find she has brought a dinosaur home, leading to a surreal slice-of-life comedy as the two become roommates.
The success of the manga led to a multimedia adaptation. An anime television series co-animated by Space Neko Company and Kamikaze Dōga premiered in April 2020, with Jun Aoki serving as director and writer. A live-action drama adaptation also premiered on the same day, running for three episodes. Funimation licensed the anime for English-speaking territories under the title Gal & Dino.
Beyond Gal & Dino, Tomimura’s other credited works include Boku-tachi LGBT, a two-volume series published from 2016 to 2018, and Hyōryū-kun, based on an original story by Moriko Mori. She also contributed to the anthology series MANGA Day to Day in 2020. More recent projects include illustrating Makezugirai na Pochama to Ganko na Shōsetsuka in 2021 and launching the series Gyaru to Tsuchinoko and ManPen in 2024.
Tomimura’s artistic identity is often tied to comedy and slice-of-life narratives, frequently in collaboration with her wife, writer Moriko Mori. The industry significance of Gal & Dino lies in its unique hybrid release, where the anime and live-action drama were broadcast concurrently, creating a cross-media experience that was noted for its unconventional and experimental presentation.
Tomimura is best known as the illustrator for the series Gal & Dino, also known as My Roomie Is a Dino. The manga was written by Moriko Mori, who is also Tomimura’s spouse. The series was serialized in Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine from October 2018 to January 2022 and compiled into seven tankōbon volumes. The story follows a gyaru named Kaede who wakes up after a night of drinking to find she has brought a dinosaur home, leading to a surreal slice-of-life comedy as the two become roommates.
The success of the manga led to a multimedia adaptation. An anime television series co-animated by Space Neko Company and Kamikaze Dōga premiered in April 2020, with Jun Aoki serving as director and writer. A live-action drama adaptation also premiered on the same day, running for three episodes. Funimation licensed the anime for English-speaking territories under the title Gal & Dino.
Beyond Gal & Dino, Tomimura’s other credited works include Boku-tachi LGBT, a two-volume series published from 2016 to 2018, and Hyōryū-kun, based on an original story by Moriko Mori. She also contributed to the anthology series MANGA Day to Day in 2020. More recent projects include illustrating Makezugirai na Pochama to Ganko na Shōsetsuka in 2021 and launching the series Gyaru to Tsuchinoko and ManPen in 2024.
Tomimura’s artistic identity is often tied to comedy and slice-of-life narratives, frequently in collaboration with her wife, writer Moriko Mori. The industry significance of Gal & Dino lies in its unique hybrid release, where the anime and live-action drama were broadcast concurrently, creating a cross-media experience that was noted for its unconventional and experimental presentation.
Works
- Topics: Anime overview