George Abe was the pen name of Naoya Abe, a Japanese author and former yakuza born in Tokyo on May 17, 1937, who died of pneumonia on September 2, 2019. He is best known internationally as the original writer of the manga series Rainbow: Nisha Rokubō no Shichinin, a collaboration with illustrator Masasumi Kakizaki. His background as a former member of the yakuza, having joined the Ando-gumi as a teenager before being recruited by the Koganei-ikka, deeply informed his creative work.

Abe began his literary career in 1986 after leaving his life in organized crime, achieving bestseller status with a novel about his time in Fuchū Prison titled Hei no Naka no Korinai Menmen, which was later adapted into a film. He transitioned to manga later in his career, with Rainbow becoming his most internationally recognized work. The series was serialized in Shogakukan’s Weekly Young Sunday from November 2002 until the magazine ceased publication in July 2008, after which it moved to Weekly Big Comic Spirits and ran until January 2010. The complete manga was collected into 22 tankōbon volumes. In 2006, the series won the 51st Shogakukan Manga Award in the general category.

The story of Rainbow is set in post-World War II Japan in the 1950s and follows six teenage delinquents sent to the Shōnan Special Reformatory, where they form a deep bond with an older inmate named Sakuragi who becomes their mentor. The narrative traces their struggles against the brutality and corruption within the reformatory as well as their lives after release, reflecting themes of friendship, perseverance, and the hardships faced by the lower class in postwar Japanese society. Abe’s personal experiences, including a stay in a reformatory himself, served as a direct source of inspiration for the characters and setting. The manga was adapted into a 26-episode anime television series by the studio Madhouse, directed by Hiroshi Kōjina, which aired on Nippon TV from April to September 2010.

Beyond Rainbow, Abe collaborated again with Masasumi Kakizaki on the series Apsaras and also authored a one-shot manga titled Yakuza to seido no suteki na menmen. His creative identity is characterized by stories drawn from the margins of society, a perspective rooted in his early life and criminal background. His work holds significance in the manga industry for its raw, socially conscious depiction of postwar Japan and for earning critical recognition with a Shogakukan Manga Award, with the Rainbow manga achieving over 3.3 million copies in circulation.