Note to self: Never be a young woman in Japan. It's just too harrowing.
Obviously, it's too late now for some of us. But, at least for the last two and a half decades, successive generations of young Japanese women have had the manga of Kyoko Okazaki to turn to for solace, solidarity and entertainment.
A prolific and prophetic artist who altered the world of women's manga as well as the way the Japanese media depicts women, Okazaki is estimated to have filled about 100,000 pages with her words and drawings. During a career that spanned some 15 years between the early 1980s and 1996, Okazaki drew the violence and turmoil swirling around and beneath the skirts (mini and otherwise) of Japanese females, while defiantly turning away from Japan's kawaii (cute) culture. Nor did she insult her characters by portraying them as adorable, malleable creatures that are the general staple of women in manga.