Kenta Shinohara
Career. Shinohara was born on 9 January 1974, in Chiba Prefecture. Starting his career as a salaryman, Shinohara decided to drop out of his white-collar job for two years while preparing for his debut as a manga artist. He has cited Fujiko F. Fujio, Akira Toriyama, and Takehiko Inoue as his favorite manga artists, and "Slam Dunk" and "Honey and Clover" as some of his favorite manga series. Shinohara worked as an assistant under Hideaki Sorachi on "Gintama" for a short time using the alias , an anagram of "Kenta Shinohara". During his stint with Sorachi, Shinohara called  him a "teacher" who taught him necessary skills. In both June and September 2003, Shinohara was a finalist for the monthly "Jump 12 Outstanding Rookie Manga Award", though he did not win either awards. In 2005, he debuted in "Akamaru Jump" Winter Issue with the article "Red Panda Puppet Show". Shinohara wrote two one-shots for "Sket Dance" in the winter and summer of 2006, submitting them to "Akamaru Jump" and "Weekly Shōnen Jump" respectively. The second one-shot was a pilot arranged in a book volume format, similar to the eventual first chapter of the main series. Serialization of  Sket Dance began on 14 July 2007 in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" issue 33. In 2010, it won the 55th Shogakukan Manga Award in the "shōnen" category. An anime adaptation by Tatsunoko Productions began airing the following year. After 288 chapters, "Sket Dance" ended serialization in 2013. In the fifteenth volume of "Sket Dance", released on 1 September 2010, Shinohara announced that he would be getting married. He is the brother-in-law of fellow manga artist Kentaro Yabuki. Shinohara wrote the lyrics for "Water Color" (ウォーターカラー), a track within The Sketchbook's 2012 album "Sketchbook". He stated that this was  the first time he had ever written song lyrics, and that he had based them on his feelings about the "coolness" of the music. He worked on the original character designs for the 2014 anime "Battle Spirits: Burning Soul". From 2016 to 2017, Shinohara serialized the science fiction manga "Astra Lost in Space" on the website/smartphone app "Shonen Jump+". It was published online in the English edition of "Weekly Shonen Jump". "Astra Lost in Space" won the 12th Manga Taishō in 2019, while its anime adaptation won the 51st Seiun Award for Best Dramatic Presentation in 2020. Shinohara began  the fantasy manga "Witch Watch" in "Weekly Shōnen Jump" Issue No. 10 in 2021. It is simultaneously published overseas via "Manga Plus" and Viz Media.