Ken Akamatsu
His work "Love Hina" is considered as the origin of harem manga and anime, especially romantic comedy. Overview. "Sailor Moon" was his introduction to anime and manga fandom. In his teens, Akamatsu applied himself to Film Study (it is speculated that this is where he got the idea for "Love Hina"). Eventually, he became famous as an illustrator at the Comiket (a comic convention held bi-annually in Japan). He used the pen name . Akamatsu, still in college (Japanese literature course at Chuo University), then proceeded to win the "Weekly Shōnen Magazine" award twice. Soon after he graduated , his "Hito Natsu no Kids Game" was awarded the coveted 50th Shōnen Magazine's Rookie Award. After a big hit with "A.I. Love You", he finally made a grand success with his manga, "Love Hina". The series appeared in "Weekly Shōnen Magazine" and has been collected in eleven volumes (with fourteen volumes in total), which have sold over 6 million copies in Japan, and received the Kodansha Manga Award for shōnen in 2001. Akamatsu had added elements of his own life experiences to the story, and this was said to have induced a unique feeling to the manga especially for  Western readers, whose lack of familiarity with Japanese culture for the most part added to the effect. The series, published in America in 2002, was especially well received in many overseas countries - Akamatsu was surprised that even foreign readers found "Love Hina" to be "cute" and to their liking. Akamatsu appears as a character in the "Love Hina" anime, in episode 14, and the Christmas and Spring specials. He is married to 'Kanon' Akamatsu, who was previously a singer/idol. His series, "Negima! Magister Negi Magi", his longest running manga so far with 355 chapters, was, like "Love Hina", also  made into an anime. A second independent retelling of "Negima" was made called "Negima!?". The first anime adaption was produced by Xebec, and the second retelling was produced by Shaft. Shaft also produces all of the OVAs for "Magical Teacher Negima!" and finally made a new "Negima!" OVA, Negima! Magister Negi Magi ~Shiroki Tsubasa Ala Alba~, and a newer series of OVAs, "Maho Sensei Negima! Mo Hitotsu no Sekai ~Another World~ ". Along with working on the "Negima" manga, he was also helping with the live action "Negima!" series. He has no task-based daily schedule for his manga work; instead  he works on one page at a time until the whole chapter is finished. When he was younger he could draw one chapter each week, but nowadays he usually draws 18 pages every 9 days. Thus, he has time to take a week-long break on four-week intervals while maintaining his weekly publishing schedule. In November 2010, he announced he would start a free manga download site for out-of-print titles called J-Comi, and announced that all 14 volumes of "Love Hina" will be its first release. The service is completely free and without any time restrictions  or commissions, with authors receiving payment based on site ads. The comics will be distributed as PDFs without any type of DRM. He also expects other manga artists to take advantage of the service. He started a new manga, "UQ Holder!", in "Weekly Shōnen Magazine"; which debuted in the 38th issue in August 2013. On December 16, 2021, Akamatsu announced he will be running for the House of Councillors, the upper house of Japan's House of Representatives, as part of the Liberal Democratic Party, in the 2022 summer election, to protect freedom of expression, artistic freedom and creators' rights  in Japan from foreign and domestic puritan and politically correct censorship, standards, regulations and influences.