Ryoichi Ikegami

Ryoichi Ikegami is a Japanese manga artist. After graduating from junior high school he moved to Osaka and drew manga while working as a billboard sign painter debuting at the age of 17 writing rental comics. In 1966 he published a story called Tsumi no Ishiki (罪の意識) in the gekiga magazine Garo that caught the eye of fellow Garo contributor, manga artist Shigeru Mizuki, who offered him a job as his assistant. Ikegami accepted and moved to Tokyo and worked as Mizuki's assistant for two and a half years. In 2001, he won the Shogakukan Manga Award for general manga as the artist of Heat. He became a professor at Osaka University of Arts in 2005.