# Paru Itagaki

Paru Itagaki (板垣 巴留, Itagaki Paru, born September 9, 1993) is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known as the creator of the manga series Beastars, for which she has won numerous awards. She is the daughter of manga artist Keisuke Itagaki.

## Biography

Paru Itagaki began painting in kindergarten, and started drawing manga in the second grade. As a teenager she developed the character Legoshi, an anthropomorphic wolf who would later appear in her manga series Beastars. She cites Disney movies and the artists Nicolas de Crécy and Egon Schiele as among her early influences.
She later attended Musashino Art University, where she studied filmmaking. She continued to pursue manga as a hobby while in university, creating dōjinshi that she would sell at dōjinshi conventions. After being unable to find a job in the film industry, Itagaki submitted her dōjinshi to editors at the publishing company Akita Shoten, which began publishing her short story collection Beast Complex in Weekly Shōnen Champion in 2016. That same year, Weekly Shōnen Champion began serializing Itagaki's critically and commercially acclaimed series Beastars.
In September 2019, Itagaki's autobiographical manga series Paruno Graffiti began serialization in Kiss. In 2021, Itagaki launched a new manga series, titled Sanda, in the 34th issue of Weekly Shōnen Champion on July 21. In 2024, Sanda concluded its serialization. An anime adaptation is planned for 2025.
In January 2025, Itagaki began serializing a new manga titled Taika no Risei in the 7th issue of Weekly Shōnen Champion.

## Personal life

Itagaki is highly private about her personal life, and wears a chicken mask to obscure her face at all public appearances. In 2018, Japanese tabloids reported that Itagaki is the daughter of Keisuke Itagaki, the creator of the manga series Baki the Grappler. Itagaki confirmed these reports in a joint interview with her father in the September 2019 issue of Weekly Shonen Champion, stating that she did not wish to disclose her parentage until she was established in the manga industry in order to avoid accusations of nepotism.
On September 24, 2023, Itagaki announced that she had gotten married.

## Works
### Serializations

* Beast Complex (ビーストコンプレックス, Bīsuto Konpurekkusu) (serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion, 2016–2019; 2021–)
* Beastars (serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion, 2016–2020)
* Paruno Graffiti (パルノグラフィティ, Paru no Gurafiti) (serialized in Kiss, 2019–2020)
* Drip Drip (ボタボタ, Bota Bota) (serialized in Weekly Manga Goraku, 2020–2021)
* Sanda (serialized in Weekly Shōnen Champion, 2021–2024)

### One-shots

* White Beard and Boyne (白ヒゲとボイン, Shiro Hige to Boin) (published in Weekly Manga Goraku, 2018)
* Manga Noodles (マンガ麺, Manga Men) (published in Monthly Comic Zenon, 2019)

## Awards and nominations

| Year | Nominated work | Category | Award | Result |
| 2018 | Beastars | Male Readers | Kono Manga ga Sugoi! | Second place |
| 2018 | Beastars | New Face Award | Japan Media Arts Festival Awards | Won |
| 2018 | Beastars | Grand Prize | Manga Taishō | |
| 2018 | Beastars | New Artist Prize | Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize | |
| 2018 | Beastars | Best Shōnen Manga | Kodansha Manga Award | |
| 2020 | Beastars | Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia | Eisner Award | Nominated |
| 2022 | Beastars | Best Comic | Seiun Award | Nominated |