Ken Vakui Biography

It all started in March, when the mysterious Vakui Ken released the first chapter of manga about school gangs in the weekly magazine Shonen Magazine. In September, after the release of the first season of the sensational adaptation anime, its circulation exceeded 40 million copies, but almost nothing is known about the author of the manga. In this material, we will tell you what Vakui Ken was inspired by and how exactly he creates his own manga.

At the center of the plot of such stories are the gangs of schoolchildren leading showdowns for the territory and power. Key leitmotifs - brotherhood, growing up and the fight against the system. For any misconduct, a young man can become an outcast. As a result of a similar lifestyle, many fell into the colony or ultimately adjoined Yakuza. The largest gang of his time was the “Black Emperor”, which was formed with the swastika.

In it, the young author first touched the theme of the criminal world of Japan. According to the plot, the protagonist in search of work enters the Tokyo criminal area and becomes a pimp. Nevertheless, he retains the human appearance and does not fall to the level of inveterate criminals without any moral values. All his subsequent works were about Yakuza, problems with the law and society.

In the year, the gaining experience of Mangaku set to a new story about gangster teenagers-the Tokyo Avengers. Therefore, I decided to add travel travel as an element of the plot in order to find myself there in my time, which I know so much about. Looking back at his life, Takeichichi understands that he lived in vain: he has no professional education, good work, housing, friends and girls.

It was precisely the gangster past that led him to this outcome. Once the summer Takeichi was recruited by members of the Tokyo Swastika, and since then he was forced to participate in battles at bets as a fighter. Tired of such a life, after graduating from high school, Hanagaki fled to another city and finally disappeared from the Tokyo Swastika. This escape cost him all social ties, so at the age of 26 the main character - the personification of the author’s experience - did not achieve anything at all.

Thanks to the opportunity to return back to the past, he gets a chance to change and save his comrades from this sad fate. Vakui Ken in his manga is trying to answer the question of how to do it. Nevertheless, his manga about Bosodko received a stunning success. Recently, the publishing company Kodansha reported on sales of the Tokyan Avengers manga. At the moment, they exceed 40 million copies.

Nevertheless, the author’s lifestyle does not look like a typical life of a celebrity. I do not have as large ego as the desire to express my opinion. So I'm not very good in an interview and speeches. I do not know what to say to make people happier. Photos above - his only official images on the Internet made several years ago. We could not even find a record of his voice, since the author of the Tokyo Avengers gave his few interviews only in text format.

During the direct air of Kodansha, where the audience could ask Vakui questions, he also answered with messages. It was also not possible to find out the information from his colleagues: he draws manga himself and almost does not resort to the help of assistants. A similar frequency can be envied by many popular mangaks with the staff of assistants using digital art instead of traditional drawing in ink on rice paper.

Whether Vakui Ken will be able to maintain such a level of productivity for a long time and, as happened with Miura, not to take long breaks due to burnout-a matter of time. He writes in the genre, whose peak came to the exit of the “cool teacher Onzuki” he talks about the era and people who were simultaneously praised in culture and marginalized in society.

Vakui is a continuous contradiction, and this is what makes his work so original.