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Machiko Hasegawa (長谷川町子 Hasegawa Machiko; January 30, 1920 – May 27, 1992, in Taku, Saga Prefecture) was one of the first female manga artists.

Life & Career[]

She started her own comic strip, Sazae-san, in 1946. It reached national circulation via the Asahi Shimbun in 1949, and ran daily until Hasegawa decided to retire in February 1974. She also created the comic strip Ijiwaru Bā-san (Granny Mischief). All of her comics were printed in Japan in digest comics; by the mid-1990s, Hasegawa's estate had sold over 60 million copies in Japan alone.

Sazae-san was a popular postwar comic strip depicting the life of Sazae-san, a fictional Japanese housewife.

Her comic strip was turned into a dramatic radio series in 1955 and a weekly animated series in 1969, which is still running as of 2017.

Selected comics were translated into English, under the title The Wonderful World of Sazae-san.

She received the People's Honor Award in 1992.

Hasegawa died of heart failure on May 27, 1992, at the age of 72. Hasegawa was also an art collector, and her collection along with additions by her sister Mariko is housed in the Hasegawa Machiko Art Museum.

Sources[]

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