Kuniko Tsurita

A Japanese mangaka. She got into manga through works of Shigeru Mizuki, Sanpei Shirato, Hiroshi Hirata, Takao Saito and began drawing on her own. She debuted as a manga artist in 1965 through her work "Hitobito no Maisou/ Kamigami no Hanashi" published in Garo and became Garo's first female artist. She completed her high school and moved to Tokyo. In Tokyo, she started drawing shoujo manga under the name Hazama Kuniko (はざまくにこ) at Kodansha and Wakagi Shobo.

However, she gradually distanced from that art style, and stopped drawing shoujo manga in 1967. In 1968, she worked as an assistant to Shigeru Mizuki , but quit after about a month. She got married in 1972 and moved to Kyoto. However, from the following year, she became ill and was found to be suffering from the incurable disease systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).