# Itaru Kinoshita

Itaru Kinoshita (Kinoshita Itaru (Japanese: 木下 いたる)） is a Japanese manga artist. Their career started with the dinosaur focused manga Attack the giant. Since 2021 their other series Dinosaur sanctuary has been in serialization.

## Career

During elementary school they used to help with taking care of chickens, sheep and pigs. Kinoshita has also said they have liked dinosaurs since their childhood.
Since their school days, they liked to draw pictures which led them to continue their education in an art high school. However, when graduation approached, they had no desire to go to art university and lacked any particular goal. Inspired by a brochure for a language school given to them by their guardians, they decided to go to the USA right after graduating from high school to study film, especially Hollywood films. However, even after moving to the USA, they found it difficult to find a job in the film industry so they contacted make-up artist AKIHITO and animation artist Daisuke Tsutsumi for advice.
After the consultation, Kinoshita realised that their own goals were still vague and began thinking that it would be better to make a living doing something that they enjoyed doing. They had already started writing comics while they were in the US and gradually shifted their career from film to comics. Later, around 2011, Kinoshita worked in Palau as a start-up staff member of a restaurant. The flat Kinoshita was living in at the time was adjacent to a forest, the animal noises coming from said forest inspired him to create a manga about dinosaurs. Specificaly about breeding and taking care of dinosaurs which Kinoshita thought was not well depicted in the film Jurassic Park
After returning to Japan, Kinoshita worked at a cinema to earn an income while trying to become a manga artist and won several manga awards. However, they were repeatedly unsuccessful and rejected. Kinoshita said that this was a very rough period for them. They also found it difficult to incorporate dinosaurs into their stories, and their projects did not progress smoothly. Kinoshita made a plan to give up if he could not serialise his work by the age of 30, and had his sights set on a job, however just before he turned 30, he saw signs of his first serialisation and continued as a manga artist. In June 2018 Kodansha's COMIC DAYS [ja] serialised Itaru Kinoshita's dinosaur panic action manga set in the Edo period titled Shoot the Gigant. The first Tankōbon volume was released in November of the same year.
After the serialisation of Shoot the Gigant ended, Kinoshita continued to create a manga about dinosaurs and their breeding that he had originally envisioned while working in Palau. Thus the world of Dino sanctuary was created thanks to Shinchosha, which decided to serialise it in their "Gekkan comic bunch [ja]"., starting in March 2021 and releasing the first Tankōbon volume in September of the same year

## Works
### Serialised

* Attack the giant（June 2018- June 2019）
* ディノサン（March 2021- ongoing）

## Citations

* 1 2 "恐竜が絶滅しなかった世界を舞台に1人の新人飼育員を描く新連載、バンチで始動". コミックナタリー. ナターシャ. 2021-03-19. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
* 1 2 3 4 "異色デビューの漫画家が描く、現代の「恐竜の飼育員」たちの働き方＜マンガ＞". bizSPA!フレッシュ. 扶桑社. 2021-09-18. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
* 1 2 "2021年の江ノ島、恐竜の飼育員になった娘を描く「ディノサン」1巻". コミックナタリー. ナターシャ. 2021-09-09. Retrieved 2021-10-04.
* ↑ 安田峰俊 (2021-10-04). "恐竜研究者が熱弁、リアルな復元に必要なのは「肋骨への愛」だ！". 文春オンライン. 文藝春秋. Retrieved 2021-10-04.