Yutsuko Chūsonji

Chūsonji was born on May 28, 1962, in Yokohama, Kanagawa Prefecture. She began drawing manga while in elementary school,^[1] and worked as a child model in elementary school and middle school.^[1][2] She took a year off after graduating from the faculty of law at Komazawa University, and developed an interest in golf.^[1] She began her career in manga in 1987, winning a rookie award from the manga magazines Business Jump and Manga Action in 1987.^[1]

Chūsonji's manga addressed themes of business, politics, and culture, typically in the context of the Japanese bubble era of the late 1980s and early 1990s.^[1] Her 1989 manga series Ojodan, first published in 1989, went on to sell over 200,000 copies.^[1] That same year she serialized Sweet Spot, a comedy about an office lady (OL) interested in golf, in the magazine SPA! [ja].^[1] Sweet Spot coined the term oyaji gal (オヤジギャル; literally "old man gal"), a term used to describe young businesswomen who have the interests and hobbies of middle-aged businessmen, such as golf and horse betting.^[1][3]

In the mid-1990s Chūsonji moved to New York City where she wrote the manga series Wild Q, which follows two Japanese men who travel to Brooklyn to learn about hip-hop. The series, serialized in the men's magazine Popeye, was criticized by the Japanese hip hop community for portraying Japanese hip-hop enthusiasts as ignorant.^[4] In response, Chūsonji altered her portrayal of Japanese characters in Wild Q and helped finance Hip-Hop Night Flight, the first successful Japanese hip-hop radio show.^[5]

Chūsonji was married to writer and translator Masaaki Kobayashi, with whom she had a son and a daughter.^[1] In August 2004, Chūsonji was diagnosed with colorectal cancer^[6] and died on January 31, 2005, at the age of 42 to complications from the disease.^[1]