


Yuko Sugiyama, a talented Japanese manga artist and lecturer at both Chuo International High School Harajuku Manga Academy and Manga School Nakano, has a big passion of bringing happiness to children through manga and commitment for teaching the art of manga to the new generations.
Sugiyama told Arab News Japan about her inspiration for Japanese anime and manga: “When I was a Junior high school student, I couldn’t adjust to school well. During that time when I felt especially felt that life is difficult, the world of manga and anime had saved me.”
“After that life changing experience at the age of 14, I decided to become a manga artist since I wanted to make children who were struggling like me to be happy. At the age of 22, I studied Japanese painting at Joshibi University of Art and Design. After that, I managed to win the Hakusensha Athena Newcomer Manga Award and debuted as a mangaka with ‘Hana to Yume Bessatsu’ magazine.”
“I believe that Japanese manga and anime has the power of making people around the world happy,” she added.
Sugiyama likes shoujo manga and Studio Ghibli animation, and recently she become a fan of shonen series such as: Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Jujutsu Kaisen, My Hero Academia, Made in Abyss, Botchi Zaroku, Attack on Titan, etc…
About the challenges that she faced during career in manga industry, Sugiyama said: “In Japan, manga and anime creators have a low status and low income. Also, it may be surprising, but there are almost no manga schools that high school students and younger can attend.”
“For this reason I created (Earthacademia), a universal school that uses manga and anime as textbooks and can be attended by all ages to nurture artists and to teach the wonderful Japanese culture of manga internationally to raise the status of artists as nurturing and carrying on the traditions of artists and to nurture talented young people,” she added.
Sugiyama was of the Japanese artists who were invited to World Art Dubai 2023 and she did manga workshops for children at the event:” Thanks to everyone, the venue was full. I hope that more people will become interested in Japanese manga and anime. We also conducted an online manga workshop event on an experimental basis for 2 days at the event and it was very well received”.
Regarding her upcoming projects, Sugiyama said:” I would like to hold online bilingual English-Japanese manga and Japanese classes regularly, connecting the Middle East and Japan.”
“Also, I would also like to show people the places where my recent work ‘Traveling Cat Ryui and the Mysterious Cherry Blossoms’ to different people around the world as well working on a new work of Alice in Wonderland,” she added.