Takashima Kazusa

Kazusa Takashima (高嶋 上総 Takashima Kazusa) is a Japanese manga artist, famous for her yaoi manga. After being a doujinshi artist from 1999–2000, she became an official manga artist in 2001. In addition to this, she has also illustrated a number of light novels. She was born October 23 in Hokkaido, and currently resides in Obihiro City in the subprefecture of Tokachi, which is considered the countryside.

Takashima Kazusa is a pen name based on a character she thought of when she was young; her real name is unknown. She smokes and is right-handed.

Career
Takashima started self-publishing works in 1999 until 2000. She primarily made doujinshi based on Shounen Jump manga Soul Hunter and fan art for many of Jump's other works such as Hikaru no Go & Shaman King, & shoujo manga Descendants of Darkness. These materials were usually BL-related.

In 2000, a few minor manga works were picked up by a lesser-known publisher, but in 2001 her original series Harlem Beat Until Dawn: Mad Love Chase was picked up for serialization in Kadokawa Publishing's Monthly Asuka magazine and is widely considered to be her big break. The series did really well so the series was made into standalone volumes starting in July of 2002. In 2001, her first original BL work, Wild Rock, was picked up by well-known BL publishing company Biblos. It was first serialized in their b-Boy Zips magazine and was available as a single volume in 2002. A second BL series was picked up that year (Last Client), also by Biblos for their Be x Boy magazine. To date, she has published nine distinctive titles through a variety of companies, and has illustrated over 30 light novel titles by various authors including, Kuwabara Mizuna, Shinohara Miki, & Rokudou Hazuki.

Hiatus
In 2003, she and a few companies filed a lawsuit against manga artist Kayono. In the lawsuit, the prosecution argued that Kayono had directly traced over many of their images and copied several scenes from Takashima manga Wild Rock. In 2004, the judge threw out the case resulting in Takashima's loss. Many speculate that perhaps Kayono's mother (the famous Ide Chikae) held some sway with the judge.

Following the unfavorable verdict, Takashima decided to go on hiatus. At the time, she had three new titles being serialized as well as Mad Love Chase, and many fans assumed this was the discontinuation of them, perhaps even the end of Takashima's career. Roughly two years later, in 2006, she resumed work with the serialization and subsequent fourth installation of Mad Love Chase, and took on a few illustration jobs, even submitting a pinup of one of the newest of her BL characters to Libre's GOLD magazine.

Future Plans
In the fifth Mad Love Chase volume's Postscript, she mentions the delay in release and said that she took the two years off due to health reasons. This is the first time she addressed the hiatus in any form, but wouldn't be her last.

In September 2008, she was invited to Connichi, one of the largest anime, manga, and video game conventions held in Kassel, Germany. She submitted a report about her experience there in conjunction with Libre's BE-BOY GOLD magazine, published in two parts. The first was in the December 2008 Issue and the second was in the February 2009 Issue.

In December 2009, Takashima mentioned on her blog that she "took a break" that she felt was necessary and that she "plans to work hard" in the new year. From 2010 to 2015, she published two oneshot manga works and mostly did illustrations here and there. One major title she illustrated during this time was Kuwabara Mizuna's prequel light novels for Mirage of Blaze in 2013, titled Mirage of Blaze: The Showa Chapters. The 11 volumes concluded publication in 2017, though her art was used for the promotional material for the stage play. This is the longest, single series light novel she's worked on thus far.

In April of 2018, she began work on a brand-new, multi-chapter manga titled Whiskers & Tails with Kannaduki, published in Libre Publishing's BE-BOY GOLD magazine (formally Biblos).

As of 2019, she maintains (though terribly, as she's put it) a blog on the Japanese blogging site Cocolog, and an Instagram account, where she reposted things posted to her blog at first, but now often shares announcements and sketches from time to time. In June of 2019, she made a post to her blog advertising the latest chapter of Whiskers & Tails, and mentioned that she'd been considering continuing one of her old works. This was exciting news for fans as several of her unfinished works (Last Client, Hakobunjaa, etc.) were very popular before her hiatus and their subsequent, unclear discontinuation. She gave no hints about which series she was considering bringing back, but sounded sure she would continue at least one of them.

Style
Takashima's art is very clean, with a heavy emphasis on realistic proportions, though her characters are often typically well-toned, or thin, which is usual of BL or shoujo works.

She has a penchant for beasts, particularly canines, in her work. She even joked about this in Mad Love Chase 's postscript—that even for a shoujo manga she couldn't help but include demons, werewolves, and other creatures. These are elements not typically found in shoujo, though CLAMP's X/1999 and Legal Drug were also being serialized along side her series in Monthly Asuka, so it probably wasn't as big of an issue as she thought.

Nearly every work of hers has these sorts of elements, with exceptions being The Last Client, Wild Rock, Private Magician, Woman Hikaru Genji, and perhaps Dragon×Boy. Though Wild Rock did still include animal elements, just not human-hybrids. And who knows what sort of elements would come from Dragon×Boy.

Self-Descriptions
Takashima herself has never revealed a photo of herself and rarely goes to events, but she does a few doodles of "herself" as some kind of small, usually frightened dog or other animal. Sometimes she is melting. She did a discussion and signing at Connichi in 2008, where a few photos were taken (right). Her age cannot be confirmed since she has never shared the year of her birth, only the date, but she was probably born in the late 1970s or 1980s.

Her editor(s) have described her as straightforward and honest, and say that she is reliable and never lies.

Likes
Living things, drives, green tea, taking pictures, looking at scenery

The band "ADIEMUS" and "freshly cooked white rice" have been previously mentioned. She has also stated that she like opera music in general but has always listed multiple 90s rock/pop bands such as Zebrahead, Sum 41, Blink-182, Backstreet Boys, and L'arc-en-Ciel. She has also mentioned her favorite colors are blues and greens.

Dislikes
Meat fat, garbage, heat, having spare time

"Restrictions" and "Boredom" have previously been mentioned. Perhaps as another way to describe what she means by "having spare time."

Characteristics
I ramble amongst strangers (from anxiety).

When asked, "If the world was being destroyed tomorrow and you could eat anything you wanted, what would you eat?" she answered "A rice ball made with freshly cooked rice."

Manga

 * Private Magician (2000)
 * The Inu mo Arukeba Series (2000)
 * Harlem Beat Until Dawn: Mad Love Chase (2001)
 * Wild Rock (2001)
 * The Last Client (2002)
 * Dragon×Boy (2003)
 * Home Delivery Squadron: Delivery Rangers (2003)
 * Woman Hikaru Genji’s Diary of Handsome Men (2011)
 * Kuchiyose, TONIGHT (2013)
 * Werewolf Academy (2015)
 * Majiochi-kun Tribute (2015)
 * Whiskers & Tails with Kannaduki (2018)

Light Novel Illustrations

 * Works by Miyabi Momoko
 * Works by Mizushima Shinobu
 * Works by Kitazawa Jinko
 * Works by Satomi Ran
 * Works by Shinohara Miki
 * Works by Kuwabara Mizuna
 * Mirage of Blaze: The Showa Chapters
 * Works by Rokudo Hazuki
 * Other Miscellaneous Light Novel Work

Other Works
See the Other Works category.

Trivia

 * "maxmaximum" is what Takashima has steadily called all of her blogs or whatnot online.
 * Sometimes she refers to her Dislikes as "Not-so-Good Things."
 * She has said that her "secret weapon" for drawing is an anatomy book.