is a Japanese illustrator and

manga artist A manga artist, also known as a mangaka (), is a Cartoonist, comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist before entering the indus ...

. With his work consisting of 4-panel comics, Okawa debuted professionally in 2008 with the manga series ''Super Elegant'' and rose to popularity with his 2014 series '' Pop Team Epic''. Okawa is also a regular contributing artist for the ''

Ensemble Stars! is a Japanese game franchise developed by Cacalia Studio and published by Happy Elements K.K., the Japanese division of the Chinese company Happy Elements. It is a spin-off of the 2012 game '' Ensemble Girls!'' It was first released as a li ...

'' media franchise.

Career

Prior to making his commercial debut, Okawa drew under the circle name Fuminbain, and continued to do so throughout most of his professional career. In 2008, he entered the 8th

Dengeki Comic Grand Prix The is an award handed out semiannually (from 2004–2009) and annually (since 2010) by the Japanese publisher ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) for original one-shot manga. Between the first and fifth contests held, there were two divisi ...

, where his comic ''3LDKM'' won the Shōnen Manga Division Excellence Prize. Later that year, he released his first series, ''Super Elegant'', through ''

Dengeki G's Festival! Comic was a Japanese magazine published by ASCII Media Works (formerly MediaWorks) and sold monthly on the thirtieth that primarily contains information on bishōjo games, but also includes an entire section on anime based on bishōjo games, and seria ...

''. In addition to drawing manga, as a contributor, Okawa regularly collaborates with other franchises such as ''

'' and '' King of Prism''. On October 3, 2021, Okawa launched a

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

channel to celebrate his 35th birthday. He later debuted as a

VTuber A or is an online entertainer who uses a virtual Avatar (computing), avatar generated using computer graphics. Real-time motion capture software or technology are often—but not always—used to capture movement. The digital trend originated i ...

on June 21, 2022, using a model designed by Nekosuke Okogemaru and sold on the resource website Nizima.

Copyright violations

Okawa's

Twitter Twitter, officially known as X since 2023, is an American microblogging and social networking service. It is one of the world's largest social media platforms and one of the most-visited websites. Users can share short text messages, image ...

account was temporarily suspended on June 8, 2018. After his account was reinstated, Okawa stated that the reason for the suspension was due to copyright infringement from a drawing he posted of MS-09B Dom from ''

Mobile Suit Gundam , also retrospectively known as ''First Gundam'', ''Gundam 0079'' or simply ''Gundam '79'', is a Japanese anime television series produced by Nippon Sunrise. Created and directed by Yoshiyuki Tomino, it premiered in Japan on Na ...

''; however, some online commenters have discussed that the suspension may have been a result of a coordinated attack from his detractors or from flippant death threats Okawa had made towards Lawson. On October 4, 2018, manga artist

Buichi Terasawa was a Japanese manga artist. His most famous works include '' Goku Midnight Eye'' and ''Cobra''. Early life and career Terasawa was born on March 30, 1955, in Asahikawa, Hokkaido. In the early days of his career, while still unknown, he con ...

accused Okawa of copyright infringement over a collaboration sweatshirt from '' Pop Team Epic'' and fashion brand Candy Stripper. The sweatshirt had parodied Terasawa's manga series ''

Cobra COBRA or Cobra, often stylized as CoBrA, was a European avant-garde art group active from 1948 to 1951. The name was coined in 1948 by Christian Dotremont from the initials of the members' home countries' capital cities: Copenhagen (Co), Brussels ...

'' and directly referenced the series in its product description. Okawa posted an apology, while the sweatshirt was removed from sale.

Personal life

On April 30, 2022, Okawa announced through

that he had gotten married. Prior to this, he and his wife had been living together since 2020.

Works

As creator

As contributor

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okawa, Bkub 1986 births Japanese illustrators Japanese YouTubers Living people VTubers