Akiko Hatsu (波津 彬子) is a Japanese manga artist born on December 16, 1959, in Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture, Japan.

Career

From the time she was in high school, she assisted her older sister, professional manga artist Yukiko Kai. After graduating high school, she began working for a printing company in Kanazawa City, but she soon quit in order to become a full-time assistant to her sister. She also began to assist other professional artists, most notably Moto Hagio. Throughout this period, Hatsu was creating self-published manga with her friend Yasuko Sakata (who also went on to become a prominent professional manga artist), and sometime around 1980, the two of them coined the term yaoi. In 1980, Yukiko Kai died of stomach cancer at the age of 26. The following year, Hatsu made her professional debut in the magazine ALLAN with the short story "Elegy of the Waves" (波の挽歌). Her work has been published in numerous magazines, including DUO (published by Asahi Sonorama), Grapefruit (グレープフルーツ) (published by Shinshokan), Petit Flower (published by Shogakukan, later retitled flowers), Strange Stories for Sleepless Nights (眠れぬ夜の奇妙な話) (published by the Asahi Shimbun Corporation, later retitled Nemuki (ネムキ)). Hatsu served as an adjunct instructor at Kyoto Seika University until retiring in 2005 due to health issues.

Works