Satoru Hiura Marks 40th Anniversary of Her Career as Manga Creator; Works Still Continuously Serialized

By Shinobu Takanashi / Yomiuri Shimbun Staff Writer

12:15 JST, December 20, 2024

Manga creator Satoru Hiura has been representing charming women who reflect their times in her work such as “Hotaru no Hikari” (“Hotaru’s Way”) and “Saionji-san wa Kaji o Shinai” (Ms. Saionji doesn’t do housework). The popular 58-year-old manga creator celebrates the 40th anniversary of her debut this year and has been continuously running serials with almost no breaks the entire time. Many readers relate to her stories and are attracted to the very human characters in her works.

Unorthodox lead characters

Lead characters in Hiura’s works are a little unorthodox, such as a “dried fish” woman who avoids romantic relationships, a woman working for a company developing a household chores app who does not do anything around the house, and a 64-year-old mother who suddenly starts going to high school.

These bright women meet setbacks and struggles, but they stay positive and keep moving forward. Their attitudes softly encourage readers, telling them that they do not need to fit into socially constructed boxes or live in a narrow world.

Born in Osaka Prefecture, Hiura has liked reading and making manga since she was a child.

Her pen name is taken from characters in two baseball manga, and she has been using it since she was a sixth-year elementary school student, when she submitted a manga to a magazine for the first time.

She continued to submit her works to magazines during junior high school and went to an art high school. When starting to think about her options after high school, she could not imagine going to a university or finding a job at a company. Since she was interested in many things, including music, fashion and design, she deeply considered what she would absolutely be able to keep doing and realized that the only thing she had continuously engaged with was manga. She decided to become a professional manga creator.

Running 6 serials simultaneously

She made her debut as a manga creator in 1984 and came to Tokyo at around the age of 20. Since then, she has devoted herself to her work. At the busiest time of her career, she ran six serials at the same time and drew as many as 160 manga pages a month. She and her fellow female manga creators, whom she became acquainted with in Osaka and elsewhere, helped each other and overcame numerous challenges.

While enduring the fierce competition among popular manga creators, the serialization of Hiura’s work never stopped for a full year, according to her.

Her manga reflect her hobbies and the things she likes. For example, she likes houses and interior design. When she thinks about the setting of a new story, she draws a floor plan and carefully creates the story by paying close attention to details such as clothes, small objects and furniture. Her characters in “Hotaru no Hikari” and other works often relax on the engawa exterior corridor of their houses.

One of her works is titled after an album by her favorite musician. After she became a fan of an idol group, she made a manga called “Hotaru no Hikari SP” featuring otaku activities. “Since I had made the manga before the word ‘Oshikatsu’ (fan activities to support their favorites) became so popular, it was a bit ahead of its time,” she laughed.

How can she create so many manga that encourage readers just by standing on their shelves? “I try to make manga as if I were talking with my little sisters and brothers,” Hiura said. “I do not expect my works to dramatically change readers’ lives, but I am happy if they are always there and cheer them up even just a little bit.”

“Hotaru no Hikari”

In 2004’s “Hotaru no Hikari,” 27-year-old company employee Hotaru Amemiya, who has generally avoided romantic relationships, happens to live with her boss Seiichi Takano.

The manga depicts the daily activities of Hotaru, who Takano calls “Himono (dried fish),” such as a romantic relationship between her and a 24-year-old furniture designer, her growth through work, her friends and her changing relationship with Takano.

“Saionji-san wa Kaji o Shinai”

Hiura’s latest work “Saionji-san wa Kaji o Shinai” started in 2021 and has recently been made into a TV drama. Its main character is 38-year-old Itsuki Saionji, who works passionately at a company developing a household chores app, has bought a house and does not do housework at all. For some unspecified reason, she started to live with 29-year-old genius engineer Toshinao Kusumi who has a daughter, which leads her to facing the housework she has avoided so far.