Working Woman
Moyoco Anno is one of my heroes. Not only because she has survived a marriage to lunatic Anno Hideaki but also because she continues to evolve as a mangaka. Starting off as a josei artist Anno has worked through seinen and shojo with tremendous success with each demographic. A few of her titles have been translated into English and even if opinions vary on her work Anno has long been a great topic of conversation amongst manga critics. Her characters might appear to represent the selfish and self-centered elements of society but the problems these characters live through are everyone's problems at one point or another (just funnier).

In a New Year's series focusing on artists, athletes and politicos making news lately, Anno was interviewed by national broadcating network NHK this week. The interview starts off discussing her background as an artist. Her works include: Flowers & Bees, happy mania, Sakuran and Sugar Sugar Rune. The conversation quickly turned to her latest title Hatarki Man (the seinen tale of an editorial department and the lives of those hard working wo/men). The three plus volume series is hitting hard with the office workers of Japan as manga and was recently turned into an anime as well.

Check out the interview in English at this link.