16 favorites
MangakaWriter
Male
June 23 1950
Age75
Nasushiobara, Tochigi Prefecture, Japan
Years Active
1971 - Present
Also known as
Ooba Keiji (大場敬司)Tsukasa Kei (司敬)Ohba KeijiRYO
Ryou Kurashina
倉科遼
About
[Official Website](http://www.r-kurashina.com/)
Ryou Kurashina is a Japanese former comic artist and author who dropped out of Meiji University. Maakou and [Jibiki Kazuya](https://anilist.co/staff/140744/Jibiki-Kazuya) were once his assistants.
He specializes in stories about Mizu shoubai, euphemism for the night-time entertainment business (or, as he calls it, "Neon-gai mono"). He is a big name in this field, and is said to be the founder of Neon Gekiga.
He used to write gekiga under the name _Tsukasa Kei (also written original manga under the name "Takashi Tsukasa"). In addition to writing original manga, he also runs the editorial production companies "Free Hand" and "Office Kei" under his real name, Keiji Ooba_, and is contracted by publishers to produce entire magazines or parts of them.
In 1971, he made his debut as a manga artist under the name "_Takashi Tsukasa". He worked mainly for youth magazines, and produced a number of hit works, mainly bunkara stories, and has created many long-selling works,(representative works include "Yabou no Mure," "Aizu Otoko Uta," "Takeda Miken Hoshi_," and "[Shouwa Baka Hayashi](https://anilist.co/staff/140744/Jibiki-Kazuya)"). In particular, "Yabou no Mure" is famous as a super-long hit that ran for 28 volumes. More than 40 of his works have been published in tankobon form.
However, he gradually began to feel stalled as a comic book author, and decided to abandon writing. As a result, he changed his name to Ryo Kurashina and restarted his career as a full-time cartoonist. His first original work was the "Akujo no Kagami" series with _Issaku Wake. Many of his original works are Neon Gekiga with female protagonists, and his representative works include "[Jotei](https://anilist.co/manga/58445/Jotei/)", "[Jouou](https://anilist.co/manga/33413/Jouou)," and "[Yaou](https://anilist.co/manga/42587/Yaou)", which were made into TV dramas. He also writes not only neon stories but also economic stories such as "[DAWN](https://anilist.co/manga/140166/Dawn)" and "Zenibana", maiko stories such as "Jotei Hanamai" and "[Hanna rito](https://anilist.co/manga/121451/Hannari-to)", and entertainment stories such as "Joyuu" and "Ai Ningyo_".