is a

multimedia Multimedia is a form of communication that uses a combination of different content forms such as text, audio, images, animations, or video into a single interactive presentation, in contrast to tradition ...

and

manga artist A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist be ...

,. She has been called "one of the most well-known manga artists in America in the mid-1990s."

Life and career

Ippongi was born in

Yokohama City is the second-largest city in Japan by population and the most populous municipality of Japan. It is the capital city and the most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a 2020 population of 3.8 million. It lies on Tokyo Bay, south of T ...

, and attended Den-En Chofu Hikiba High School, then Tamagawa University Dept. of Agriculture, and worked on a farm. She made her manga debut as a schoolgirl in 1983 with ''Bang's Campus Diary'' in the cult magazine ''Fanroad''. The manga depicted semi-autobiographical details from her life, including her experiences at the agricultural college. As she progressed in her career, she became known as a flamboyant personality who was involved in bikini modeling,

cosplay Cosplay, a portmanteau of "costume play", is an activity and performance art in which participants called cosplayers wear costumes and fashion accessories to represent a specific character. Cosplayers often interact to create a subculture, ...

and dressing as manga characters such as

Rumiko Takahashi is a Japanese manga artist. With a career of several commercially successful works, beginning with ''Urusei Yatsura'' in 1978, Takahashi is one of Japan's best-known and wealthiest manga artists. Her works are popular worldwide, where they have ...

's Lum. Along with several friends, she started up a manga collective called "Studio Do-Do" and several of their works were translated and published in the United States in the 1990s by

Antarctic Press Antarctic Press is a San Antonio-based comic book publishing company which publishes "Amerimanga" style comic books. The company also produces "how-to" and "you can" comics, instructing on areas of comic book creation and craft. Beginning in 1 ...

. Ippongi, who had once been an exchange student in the United States and was familiar with the American scene, came to American conventions to promote her work. After Antarctic Press stopped publishing manga in the mid-1990s, Ippongi's works such as ''Virtual Bang, Doctor!'' and ''Bang's Sexplosion'' were published in the United States by

Studio Ironcat Studio Ironcat was a small publishing company based in Fredericksburg, Virginia, dedicated to publication of manga and later, Amerimanga. The company is most known for its publication of the first volume of ''Megatokyo'', a prominent webcomic ...

but when Ippongi contact at the studio, co-founder Kuni Kimura left under a cloud in 1999, translation of her work for the American market ceased. Ippongi married in 1996 and although she has published little professional work since 2000, she did release a book in 2008, (), a volume of comics about infertility.

Works

Her published works include: * ''The Hero Kojiro 2'', 3 volumes (Ennix Manga) * ''All Around Ippongi Bang'', photo collection and video (MOVIC) * ''Hong Kong Video Castle'', 3 volumes (

Shogakukan is a Japanese publisher of dictionaries, literature, comics (manga), non-fiction, DVDs, and other media in Japan. Shogakukan founded Shueisha, which also founded Hakusensha. These are three separate companies, but are together called the Hit ...

; Planning, Production and Publishing by Yuuki Hiroshi and Co.) * ''Manga Empress of All the Asias: The Dynamic Ippongi Bang CD-ROM'' art and

photo collection CD-ROM (

Gainax Gainax Co., Ltd. (stylized as GAINAX; ja, 株式会社ガイナックス, Hepburn romanization, Hepburn: ) is a Japanese anime studio famous for productions such as ''Neon Genesis Evangelion'', ''Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise, Roya ...

) She has appeared in several films and direct-to-video adult movies, including the ''ExorSister'' series directed by

Takao Nakano is a Japanese film director, screenwriter and actor who has worked in pink film, adult videos (AV), and in mainstream comedy, horror and fantasy films. Film critic Jasper Sharp describes him as one of the few figures in the Japanese erotic film ...

where she played Maria Cruel, the ExorSister: * ''Chō-yōma densetsu Uratsuki-dōji: Makai gakuen-hen'' (1994) (aka. ''ExorSister 1'') * ''Chō-yōma densetsu Uratsuki-dōji: Hakui jigoku-hen'' (1994) (aka. ''ExorSister 2'') * ''Chō-yōma densetsu Uratsuki-dōji: Joyō Senmenki-hen'' (1994) (aka. ''ExorSister 3'') * ''Chō-yōma densetsu Uratsuki-dōji: Daiishin fukkatsu-hen'' (1994) (aka. ''ExorSister 4'') * '' Ballistic Kiss'' (1998) (殺殺人、跳跳舞)

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ippongi, Bang 1965 births Living people 20th-century Japanese women artists 21st-century Japanese women artists Manga artists from Kanagawa Prefecture Women manga artists Japanese female comics artists People from Yokohama