is a Japanese manga artist known as the creator of the ''

Hamtaro ''Hamtaro'', known in Japan as , is a Japanese manga and storybook series created and illustrated by Ritsuko Kawai about a hamster. The manga was serialized in Shogakukan's ''Shōgaku Ninensei'' (''Second Grade'') magazine in April ...

'' franchise.

Career

Hamtaro

Kawai originally created Hamtaro as storybooks for children first published in 1997 and adapted into an

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

television series in Japan in July 2000. ''

'' is about a little hamster and his friends. ''Hamtaro'' gained great popularity and was made into an anime series and a line of merchandising. However, the animated show has since been cancelled. Kawai has had a say in the message that ''Hamtaro'' promoted, which was non-violence, teamwork, cooperation and sharing. Hamtaro has also been made into many different games for

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

handheld systems such as the

Game Boy Color The (GBC or CGB) is an 8-bit handheld game console developed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on October 21, 1998, and to international markets that November. Compared to the original Game Boy, the Game Boy Color features a color TFT scre ...

Game Boy Advance The (GBA) is a 32-bit handheld game console, manufactured by Nintendo, which was released in Japan on March 21, 2001, and to international markets that June. It was later released in mainland China in 2004, under the name iQue Game Boy Advanc ...

and

Nintendo DS The is a foldable handheld game console produced by Nintendo, released globally across 2004 and 2005. The DS, an initialism for "Developers' System" or "Dual Screen", introduced distinctive new features to handheld games: two LCD screens worki ...

Other works

Other than ''Hamtaro'', Ritsuko Kawai has created other shōjo

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

, serialized in ''

Ciao ( , ) is an informal salutation in the Italian language that is used for both " hello" and "goodbye". Originally from the Venetian language, it has entered the vocabulary of English and of many other languages around the world. Its dual mea ...

'' magazine.

References

External links

* 1964 births Living people Japanese writers People from Toyonaka, Osaka {{Japan-writer-stub