is the pseudonym of a Japanese

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 ...

. Born and raised in Okinawa, Wayama made her debut as a manga artist in 2015 while a student in the manga program at Tokyo Polytechnic University. After unsuccessful attempts to launch a serial manga series she began to produce (self-published manga) to critical acclaim. Her ''

Captivated, by You is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Yama Wayama. Originally written as a ''doujinshi'' (self-published manga) in February 2019, the manga was later acquired by the ''Comic Beam'' editorial department, who published the manga in one ...

'' became a critical and commercial success after being acquired and published by the publishing house

Enterbrain , formerly , is a Japanese publisher and division of Kadokawa Future Publishing founded on 30 January 1987 as . Magazines published by Enterbrain are generally focused on video games and computer entertainment as well as video game and strategy ...

, winning the

Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize Named after Osamu Tezuka, the is a yearly manga prize awarded to manga artists or their works that follow the Osamu Tezuka manga approach founded and sponsored by Asahi Shimbun. The prize has been awarded since 1997, in Tokyo, Japan. Current ...

in the Short Work category and the New Face Award at the

Japan Media Arts Festival Awards The Japan Media Arts Festival is an annual festival held since 1997 by Japan's Agency for Cultural Affairs. The festival begins with an open competition and culminates with the awarding of several prizes and an exhibition. Based on judging by a ...

. Her other series include ''

Let's Go Karaoke! is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Yama Wayama. The series follows a yakuza lieutenant who seeks instruction in karaoke from the head of a high school choir. It was originally published as a (self-published manga) in 2019 ...

'' and '' Onna no Sono no Hoshi''.

Biography

Early life and career

Wayama was born in 1995 in Okinawa, where she was also raised. She attended Itoman Minami Elementary School for primary school, and

Okinawa Shogaku High School is a middle school and high school in the Kokuba district of Naha, Okinawa. Okisho, as it is called, is known for its performance in high school baseball tournaments, including National tournament wins in 1999 and 2008. Its colors are green, y ...

for junior high and high school. In middle school she began drawing color pencil illustrations inspired by manga (girls manga) that she would upload to the blogging site

Ameba An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and retracting pseudop ...

, and as a senior in high school began drawing boys' love manga (male-male romance manga, abbreviated as "BL") as a hobby. She has used the

pen name A pen name, also called a ''nom de plume'' or a literary double, is a pseudonym (or, in some cases, a variant form of a real name) adopted by an author and printed on the title page or by-line of their works in place of their real name. A pen na ...

"Wayama" since middle school: initially "Wayama" mononymously for her Ameba illustrations, then for her early manga. She eventually settled on "Yama Wayama" as her pen name, basing it off her high-school nickname "Yama-san", as she felt it was easier to remember than "Tomoyoshi". She decided to pursue manga as a career in her senior year of high school, and entered the manga program at Tokyo Polytechnic University. Seeking to write manga about "everyday things", Wayama initially began drawing manga (men's manga), as she believed that manga (women's manga) would not be conducive to her style. In her sophomore year she submitted her manga for the , and won the Newcomer's Award. This win led to the publication of

one-shot One shot may refer to: Film and television * One-shot film, a feature film shot in one long take with no edits, or manufactured to look like so * ''One Shot'' (2005 film), a Sri Lankan action film directed by Ranjan Ramanayake * ''One Shot'' (2 ...

(single chapter) manga in the Winter 2016 issue of the magazine '' Weekly D Morning'', her first paid job as a manga artist. According to Wayama, attempts to publish further works with ''Morning'' "didn't work out", stating that "part of me was only creating manga to get the approval of editors, so I'd totally lost sight of what I wanted to draw".

and breakthrough

After her experience at ''Morning'', Wayama sought to create manga that she "actually liked and felt like drawing, without listening to what other people had to say." She took a job in food service and published the one-shot ''Ushiro no Nikaidou'' on the online community Pixiv to critical acclaim. ''Ushiro no Nikaidou'' would become a chapter in her (self-published manga) ''

'', which she released at the convention in February 2019. An editor at the manga magazine ''

Comic Beam is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Enterbrain on a monthly basis since November 1995. In 2006, it had a circulation of 25,000. Popular manga serialized in ''Comic Beam'' include Kaoru Mori's '' Emma'' about the love story between ...

'' acquired the for publication as a book, which was published in August that same year. The manga was a significant critical and commercial success, selling out three printings in one month and winning the

in the Short Work category and the New Face Award at the

. Her subsequent manga ''

'' was similarly published as a before being acquired by Kadokawa for publication. Wayama's first serial manga, '' Onna no Sono no Hoshi'', began serialization in the manga magazine '' Feel Young'' in January 2020.

Style and influences

Wayama primarily creates slice of life stories, stating that she "tr esto keep an overall mellow energy" in her work. She cites manga artists Usamaru Furuya, Eiji Nonaka, Junji Ito, and

Makoto Kobayashi is a Japanese physicist known for his work on CP-violation who was awarded one-fourth of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Physics "for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quar ...

as her four primary influences. She lists Furuya as her most significant influence, stating that after she read his series '' Lychee Light Club'' while in high school, she drew her first amateur manga by imitating his art style; Furuya also influenced her orientation towards junior- and high school-aged boys as primary subjects of her manga. Nonaka influenced her style of "funny manga paired with serious illustrations", while Kobayashi influenced the manner in which she draws girls. While Ito's psychological horror is not overtly reflected in Wayama's manga, she has stated that she is interested in one day drawing

horror manga Horror comics are comic books, graphic novels, black-and-white comics magazines, and manga focusing on horror fiction. In the US market, horror comic books reached a peak in the late 1940s through the mid-1950s, when concern over content and the ...

. Her earlier influences include ''Boku to Issho'' by

Minoru Furuya is a Japanese manga artist from Saitama Prefecture. His debut work is '' The Ping Pong Club'', published in ''Young Magazine''. It was adopted into a 26-episode anime series in 1995. In 1996, he won the Kodansha Manga Award for ''The Ping P ...

, the first manga she ever read and her favorite overall, as well as works introduced to her as a child by her older siblings: '' Urusei Yatsura'' by Rumiko Takahashi and the works of

Aya Nakahara is a Japanese manga artist. She won the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo manga for ''Lovely Complex'' ''Love Com'', a romance manga about a tall high school girl who falls in love with a short guy. Works * ''Haru to Kuuki Nichiyobi' ...

in ''

Margaret Margaret is a female first name, derived via French () and Latin () from grc, μαργαρίτης () meaning "pearl". The Greek is borrowed from Persian. Margaret has been an English name since the 11th century, and remained popular througho ...

'' by her older sister, and '' Doraemon'' by

Fujiko F. Fujio was a manga writing duo formed by Japanese manga artists and . They formed their partnership in 1951, and used the Fujiko Fujio name from 1954 until dissolution of the partnership in 1987, upon Fujimoto's illness. The pair was best known ...

and '' Yu-Gi-Oh!'' by Kazuki Takahashi by her older brother. Japanese films are also an influence on Wayama, particularly the "character development and warm humor" in the works of Shinobu Yaguchi. Intimate male-male relationships are a recurring motif in Wayama's works, with journalist Atsushi Takayama describing her manga as depicting "brilliant relationships between men that go beyond friendship, but not quite to the point of romance". Wayama has acknowledged the influence of the boys' love (BL) genre on her work, stating that "I draw some things with BL in mind, and some things without it. I have a clear picture of that in my head, but I want each reader to interpret and enjoy my work how they want to."

Works

* (published on Moae, 2015) * (published in '' Weekly D Morning'', 2016) * ''

'' (self-published, 2019; published by

, 2019) * ''

'' (self-published, 2019; published by Kadokawa, 2020) * (serialized in '' Feel Young'', 2020–present)

Awards and nominations

, - ! 2015 , ''Yūtōsei no Mondai'' , Newcomer Award , , , , , - ! rowspan="4" , 2020 , ''

'' , Women's Manga , '' Kono Manga ga Sugoi!'' , , , , - , ''Captivated, by You'' , New Face Award ,

, , , , - , ''Captivated, by You'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , - , ''Captivated, by You'' , Short Work ,

, , , , - ! rowspan="4" , 2021 , ''

'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , - , '' Onna no Sono no Hoshi'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , - , ''Onna no Sono no Hoshi'' , Women's Manga , ''Kono Manga ga Sugoi!'' , , , , - , ''Let's Go Karaoke!'' , Women's Manga , ''Kono Manga ga Sugoi!'' , , , , - ! rowspan="2" , 2022 , ''Onna no Sono no Hoshi'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , - , ''Onna no Sono no Hoshi'' , Social Impact Award , Japan Media Arts Festival Awards , , , , - ! 2023 , ''Onna no Sono no Hoshi'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , - ! 2024 , '' Fami-res Iko.'' , , Manga Taishō , , , , -

References

External links

Yama Wayama
on Twitter * {{DEFAULTSORT:Wayama, Yama 1995 births Living people Manga artists from Okinawa Prefecture Women manga artists Japanese female comics artists Female comics writers Winner of Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize (Short Story Award)