Fukuoka University
A student of French literature from Fukuoka University, Kobayashi published his first manga, "Tōdai Itchokusen" (東大一直線, Beeline to Tokyo U), in 1976 in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" while still in school. Another of his early series, , a satire about a naughty rich boy in the heyday of Japan's bubble economy, won the 1989 Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga.