Entry updated 7 August 2023. Tagged: Artist, Author, Comics.
Pen-name of Hiromi Arakawa (1973- ), with a vowel shift allowing this female
Manga
creator to appear to casual
Japanese
viewers to be male, presumably of some occasional value in her habitual field of
Comics
for boys. A high-school graduate who spent the first seven years of her adult life working on her parents' dairy farm, she moved to Tokyo in 1999 to become an art assistant to the manga artist Hiroyuki Etō. Her independent career, beginning with
Stray Dog
(graph 1999
Monthly Shōnen Gangan
) and the truncated series
Shanghai Yōmakikai
["Ghost Demons of Shanghai"] (graph 2000
Monthly Shōnen Gangan
), was propelled to a new and internationally successful level with the
Seiun Award
-winning
Hagane no Renkinjutsu-shi
(graph August 2001-June 2010
Monthly Shōnen Gangan
27vols; trans as
Fullmetal Alchemist
2005
-
2011
27vols); for television and film adaptations see
Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood
(
2009-2010
).
Arakawa's world is strongly rooted in the tropes of
Science and Sorcery
, beginning in a
Parallel World
where alchemy and conjuration take the place of science. Her fraternal
Antiheroes
are maimed apprentices, one seeking to replace lost limbs, the other an entire lost physical form after a disastrous summoning experiment. Two
Anime
spin-offs followed from 2003-2004 and more faithfully to the original in 2009-2010, along with a
Light Novel
series (
2004-2010
chap) by Makoto Inoue. Notably in the anime version, the apprentices' long quest embroils them in the machinations of
Secret Masters
on their own world of Amestris, and takes a radical turn partway through the narrative, leading to an extended
Slingshot Ending
with the opening of a gateway to our own Earth, where they are harbingers of the
Lost World
and
Power Source
sought by Nazi occultists.
Arakawa's work has introduced many young Japanese to principles of alchemy and demonology, such that she was also used as the cover illustrator for the Japanese editions of
The Demon's Lexicon
(2009-2011) by Sarah Rees Brennan. [JonC]
Hiromi Arakawa
born
Tokachi, Hokkaidō, Japan: 8 May 1973
works
(selected)
links
previous versions of this entry