Mitsuru Miura

is a Japanese manga artist from Yokohama. He is best known for the series The Kabocha Wine, which was adapted as an anime television series, and for which he received the 1983 Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen.

Career

Miura's career took off in 1971, while he was attending Isogo Technical High School. In that year, he won Weekly Shōnen Jump's Young Jump Award for . After graduating high school, he went on to be an assistant at Tezuka Productions. Soon after in 1973, he won an Honorable Mention in the 6th Tezuka Award for his series , and another Honorable Mention in 9th Tezuka Award in 1975 for his series .

In 1980, Miura wrote a one-off manga called that released in Weekly Shōnen Magazine. This short story soon evolved into his most popular manga series, The Kabocha Wine, running from 1981 to 1984, containing 18 volumes, and a 95-episode anime series released by Toei Animation, airing from July 5th, 1982 until August 25th, 1984. He credits the inspiration for the series' title from a commercial he once saw, saying , which then turned into "The Kabocha Wine", saying that the title had nothing to do with the series' overall premise. His main inspiration for the series was his own childhood, saying that he was usually shorter than most kids in his class, and finding himself attracted to the taller girls at school. To add, the main character, Shunsuke Aoba, is inspired by Miura himself. The female lead, Natsumi Asaoka (known as "L"), is cited to be partially inspired by , a Japanese swimsuit model and actress.

Miura returned to The Kabocha Wine in 2006 with The Kabocha Wine – Sequel and The Kabocha Wine – Another, with the latter being turned into a live-action movie in 2007, which received mixed reviews. In 2017, he returned to the series for the last time with the title . After a successful crowdfunding event, he officially retired from manga after a 45-year-long career.

In partnership with 7-Eleven and Lawson, a re-release of the manga for The Kabocha Wine began in 2021, releasing books all over Japanese convenience stores.

Manga NameYearNotes 1978–1979 2 volumes 1981–1984 18 volumes 1985–1986 6 volumes 1990 2 volumes 1998–1999 4 volumes The Kabocha Wine – Sequel 2006–2009 1 volume The Kabocha Wine – Another 2007–2009 6 volumes Wonderful 2007 1 volume