KAWAHARA Kazuko

Born in 1968 in Hiroshima Prefecture and raised in Fukuoka Prefecture. KAWAHARA worked as a preschool teacher, in the PR department of anime studio Gainax, and at other jobs before turning freelance. Now, she writes essays and provides commentary about manga. She wrote Jinsei no taisetsu na koto ha omune, manga ga oshiete kureta (Everything I Know, I Learned from Manga) [NTT Publishing, 2009]. Her major columns include Ren'ai no otehon ha, itsumo shojo manga (Girls' Manga Was My Model for Love) for the women's website SmartWoman (currently Nikkei WOMAN [Nikkei Inc.]) in 2005, and the manga commentary columns Kore yomazu ni nani wo yomu? (Well, What Should I Read, Then?) [2007-2014] and Manga koso dokusho da! (Manga Is Reading!) [2015-2019] for the web magazine Webnttpub. [NTT Publishing]. KAWAHARA has contributed essays to publications such as Sotokushu MIHARA Jun (Full Review of Jun MIHARA) [Kawade Shobo Shinsha, 2015]. She was a contributing editor and writer for the book entitled IKEDA Riyoko no sekai (The Wonderful World of Riyoko IKEDA) [Asahi Shimbun Publications, 2012]. She was a symposium panelist at the 10th Conference of the Japan Society for Studies in Cartoons and Comics in 2010, and has served as a guest lecturer at Tokyo Polytechnic University and Tokyo University of the Arts.