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Early Shōjo Manga Creator Nanaeko Sasaya Dies at 74 Due to Small-Cell Lung Carcinoma

Sasaya was part of the Year 24 Group — a group of innovative female manga creators who were born in or around the Year Shōwa 24 (1949) and who shaped the now diverse field of shōjo manga. She made her manga debut with Kamome—GULL— in Shueisha's Ribon Comic magazine in 1970 under the name Nanae Sasaya. Her autobiographical manga Okamehachimoku (pictured right) won the Excellence Prize at the 19th Japan Cartoonists Association Award in 1990. She changed her name to Nanaeko Sasaya in 1996.

In 1996, she adapted Atsuko Shiina's Oya ni Naruhodo Muzukashii Koto wa Nai book on child abuse into the manga Kōritsuita Me (Frozen Eyes), which became a notable part of a movement to reform Japan's child abuse laws.

Source: Comic Natalie