Top

Home

News

Apps

Arigato Doll

Cybermanga Studio

About us

Konohana Sakuya

Konohana Sakuya is the alias of the working partnership between two comic artists, Kohei Nishino and Tsugumi Nishino.
In 2002, the duo was awarded the Grand Prize of the 1st World Manga Faithful Readership Award, sponsored by publisher Shinchosha, which received much coverage for the total sum of its prizes--100 million yen (about $9 million)--and the fact all winners were voted entirely by readers.
The winner of the above prize, "Encounter," was serialized in the weekly Comic Bunch magazine until October 2003. The series was given the jury's choice award by the Cultural Agency in the Manga Category of the Media Arts Festival Awards for fiscal 2003.
Since August 2004, the duo has had its latest work, "The Lights," serialized in the monthly version of the Shonen Jump magazine.

Tsugumi Nishino made her debut in 1993 in the weekly Young Jump magazine. Notable works include "Yurameki Paradise Girl" and "Tatakau Meido San!" (The Battling Maid). A bilingual manga she serialized on her Web site, "Hanamaru Angels," has been published in book form. She has also presented her work "Fubuki the Female Ninja" on the U.S. manga magazine Chibi-Pop Manga.

Kouhei Nishino, made his debut in 1980 after winning the best newcomer manga artists award sponsored by publisher Shogakukan, while studying at Tokyo Zokei University.
Since then, he's published work in the monthly Shonen Sunday, monthly version of Shonen Jump, the monthly Shonen Magajin, Combat Comic and Animal House magazines. He's also done artwork for novels, worked on the animated film "Gundam F91" and produced Web-based animation.
Kohei is also responsible for nurturing young artists as a lecturer at the Arts Department of Kyoto Seika University.

Web-based productions Konohana Sakuya have worked on
CYBERMANGA.COMIn 1996 (This was an old version), established Hanamaru Weekly, the world's first Web site to provide manga in nine languages: Japanese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, German, Chinese, Dutch and Swedish. The site now has over a million hits a month.

The history of Konohana Sakuya and cybermanga (a new style of manga art designed specifically to be enjoyed using digital devices)
1996: Began production on next generation, Web-based manga using the latest digital technology.
1999: Published "Hanamaru Angels" over the Net, before any other medium.
2001: Selected as an exemplar business for Web content production by the Economy, Trade and Industry Ministry-funded Digital Contents Association of Japan. Began producing manga meant to be browsed over the Internet, and named this genre "cybermanga."
2003: Awarded 1st Digital Manga Award, sponsored by weekly Shonen Jump magazine.
Awarded MacFan Digital Manga Award, sponsored by Mainichi Communications.
Nominated for DCAJ-sponsored award for business that helped the most in developing breakthrough technology for producing high-quality Web content.
"Encounter" was selected as jury's choice for the Manga Category, while "Lost Alias: Dungun" and "GuruGuru 4-Koma Noroi no Yakata: Hyaku Monogatari" were selected as jury's choice for the Entertainment Category at the Cultural Agency's Media Arts Festival Awards for fiscal 2003.
2004: Published the serial digital manga "Lost Alias: Dungun" on the weekly Shonen Jump magazine Web site, Pop Web Jump.

Comment by the artist:

We finally released our original iPad, iPhone and iPod touch app this time. We're very happy and we hope many people in the world enjoy our new style mangas.
This is only our first step! We'll provide you many new style mangas from now on.
Please stay tune!