Moe Yukimaru
Description
Moe Yukimaru is a Japanese manga artist known for creating romantic comedy works aimed at a young female audience. Born on February 18, 1986, in Ibaraki Prefecture, she began her career in the manga industry as an assistant to fellow manga creator Nana Haruta before making her own debut.
Yukimaru launched her professional career in 2006 when she won the prestigious Ribon Manga School Award, known as the Ribon Prize, for her work. That same year, her winning entry, Totteoki no Uta, was published in the November issue of Ribon magazine, marking her official debut as a manga artist.
She is best known as the creator of Hiyokoi, a shōjo manga series that became her most extensive and commercially successful work. The series was serialized in Shueisha's monthly magazine Ribon from November 2009 to November 2014 and was compiled into fourteen tankōbon volumes. The title is a wordplay combining hiyoko, meaning chick, and koi, meaning love, reflecting the story's central romance between a tiny, shy girl and a tall, outgoing boy. The series reportedly sold over 90,000 copies per volume in Japan.
Beyond Hiyokoi, Yukimaru has created numerous other manga series and short stories. Her early short works were collected in volumes such as Sweet 16 and Ai kara Hajimaru. Later works include Esoragoto from 2015, the four-volume series Suisai which ran from 2015 to 2016, Hidamari no Tsuki from 2017, and Hatsukoiriteiku from 2019.
An anime adaptation of Hiyokoi was produced as a twenty-two-minute animated film by the studio Production I.G. The film was directed by Norihiro Naganuma and released on July 30, 2010, at the Ribon Summer festival in Tokyo, with subsequent screenings in Osaka and Nagoya. A DVD containing the film was released alongside the November 2010 issue of Ribon magazine.
Yukimaru's artistic style is characteristic of shōjo manga, featuring characters with large, expressive eyes and panel layouts that emphasize emotion through light, dreamy screentones. Her work primarily focuses on first love and the emotional experiences of adolescent protagonists. Her early art showed the influence of her mentor Nana Haruta, but her style has since evolved into a more refined and personal approach.
Yukimaru is left-handed and has listed her hobbies as playing the guitar and shopping. Her favorite musicians include the bands BUMP OF CHICKEN and ELLEGARDEN. She has expressed that her future dream is to become a manga artist and a charismatic housewife. As an artist published by Shueisha and serialized in Ribon, one of Japan's leading shōjo manga magazines, Yukimaru holds a recognized place within the mainstream Japanese manga industry, contributing to the romance genre for young readers.
Yukimaru launched her professional career in 2006 when she won the prestigious Ribon Manga School Award, known as the Ribon Prize, for her work. That same year, her winning entry, Totteoki no Uta, was published in the November issue of Ribon magazine, marking her official debut as a manga artist.
She is best known as the creator of Hiyokoi, a shōjo manga series that became her most extensive and commercially successful work. The series was serialized in Shueisha's monthly magazine Ribon from November 2009 to November 2014 and was compiled into fourteen tankōbon volumes. The title is a wordplay combining hiyoko, meaning chick, and koi, meaning love, reflecting the story's central romance between a tiny, shy girl and a tall, outgoing boy. The series reportedly sold over 90,000 copies per volume in Japan.
Beyond Hiyokoi, Yukimaru has created numerous other manga series and short stories. Her early short works were collected in volumes such as Sweet 16 and Ai kara Hajimaru. Later works include Esoragoto from 2015, the four-volume series Suisai which ran from 2015 to 2016, Hidamari no Tsuki from 2017, and Hatsukoiriteiku from 2019.
An anime adaptation of Hiyokoi was produced as a twenty-two-minute animated film by the studio Production I.G. The film was directed by Norihiro Naganuma and released on July 30, 2010, at the Ribon Summer festival in Tokyo, with subsequent screenings in Osaka and Nagoya. A DVD containing the film was released alongside the November 2010 issue of Ribon magazine.
Yukimaru's artistic style is characteristic of shōjo manga, featuring characters with large, expressive eyes and panel layouts that emphasize emotion through light, dreamy screentones. Her work primarily focuses on first love and the emotional experiences of adolescent protagonists. Her early art showed the influence of her mentor Nana Haruta, but her style has since evolved into a more refined and personal approach.
Yukimaru is left-handed and has listed her hobbies as playing the guitar and shopping. Her favorite musicians include the bands BUMP OF CHICKEN and ELLEGARDEN. She has expressed that her future dream is to become a manga artist and a charismatic housewife. As an artist published by Shueisha and serialized in Ribon, one of Japan's leading shōjo manga magazines, Yukimaru holds a recognized place within the mainstream Japanese manga industry, contributing to the romance genre for young readers.