Born in 1967 in Kagoshima Pref. His debut work, “Kaede Purple” won the Tezuka Award in 1988. “Slam Dunk,” a manga series based on basketball which the author himself enthused about, begun in 1990 and triggered the basketball boom. This series was later broadcast as TV animation and its paperback was published in Hong Kong, Taiwan, S. Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Indonesia, Italy, France, Germany, Brazil, U.S., Spain and Argentina.
In recent years, “Vagabond,” a story about Miyamoto Musashi, and “Real,” a story about wheelchair basketball, are being serialized.

Having completed the Postgraduate Course of Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music in 1985 majoring in Art, Tanaka currently works as a visual artist. Since the late 80's, he has been working internationally holding exhibitions both inside and outside Japan and engaging in direction of music videos, TV commercials and performances and in art direction and creative direction of advertisements, CI and product development.
He has been awarded with numerous prizes including Grand Prix of the Japan Art & Culture Association (JACA) Japan Visual Art Exhibition, Tokyo Art Directors Club (ADC) Award, Tokyo Copywriters Club (TCC) Award, All Japan Radio & Television Commercial Confederation (ACC) Silver Prize, MITI Minister's Award of Japan Display Design Association (DDA), Tokyo Type Directors Club (TDC) Member's Silver Prize, Asia Pacific Advertising Festival Gold Prize, etc.

In late 80's, after disbanding an indies band “Jin-Sey,” Takkyu Ishino and Pierre Taki initiated the formation of “Denki Groove.” In 1991, they released a major debut album “FLASH PAPA.” After the “WIRE01” live in 2001, they took a break from being a band. After members worked as solo, the band began working again as a group. In July 2006, they appeared as a “headliner” on GREEN STAGE at FUJI ROCK FESTIVAL ’06. They are currently recording an original album, which is scheduled to be released next spring (2008).

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  Photo by David Sims

Currently based in New York, Mariko works internationally as one of the leading Japanese artists. Her photo collection of a neo-futuristic girl modeled by Mariko herself taken in the urban settings of Tokyo attracted public attention. Her stance shifted thereafter to a more profound spiritual perspective, and in recent years she has been creating 3D artworks of larger scale and higher quality. Her major personal exhibitions in the past include those at the Prada Foundation (1999), Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (2002) and Koishikawa Annex of The University Museum, The University of Tokyo (2004). It is still fresh in our minds that her representative work “Wave UFO” exhibited at Venice Biennale was well-received by the people.

Artist. Born in 1936 in Hyogo Pref. Held a personal exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York (MoMA) in 1972. Since then, his works were invited to international biennale exhibitions at Paris, Venice, San Paolo and other cities. In recent years, he successively held personal exhibitions at The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto and other art museums. In 2006, he held a personal exhibition at Fondation Cartier Pour L'art Contemporain in Paris, which enjoyed a worldwide reputation. His works are housed in over 100 major art museums here and abroad, such as MoMA and The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
http://www.tadanoriyokoo.com