Keiko Takemiya

Keiko Takemiya (竹宮 惠子, Takemiya Keiko, born February 13, 1950) is a Japanese manga artist. She is included in the Year 24 Group. She resides in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. The year 24 group was a group of female authors in the early 1970s who helped change shoujo manga from being created by male authors to being created by female authors. As part of this group, Takemiya pioneered a genre of girls' comics about love between young men; in December 1970 she published a short story, "In the Sunroom", in Bessatsu Shōjo Komikku, which is possibly the first shōnen-ai manga published and contains the earliest known male-male kiss in shōjo manga.

Takemiya cites her influences as being shonen manga, the work of Shotaro Ishinomori, films, and documentaries. In 1972, after publishing Sora ga Suki!, Takemiya travelled to Europe so that she could find out more about life there as research for Kaze to Ki no Uta. After that, she travelled to different parts of Europe on an almost annual basis.