Arina Tanemura

is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, and character designer. She made her professional manga debut in 1996 with the one-shot The Style of the Second Love in the shōjo manga magazine Ribon Original and later published her first series, I.O.N, in 1997, in the main Ribon magazine. She gained mainstream popularity from the late 1990s to mid-2000s with her series Phantom Thief Jeanne, Full Moon o Sagashite, and The Gentlemen's Alliance Cross. Throughout her career, Tanemura's work has been recognized in shōjo manga for her art style and themes of young girls transforming into the women they would like to become. In addition to her publications, Tanemura has released two independent studio albums of songs based on her characters and is the character designer for Idolish7 and other media projects. Early life Arina Tanemura was born on March 12, 1978. Tanemura grew up in Aichi Prefecture. Her main source of entertainment was manga magazines because her local television stations only ran re-runs of older anime series, and she was unable to watch new shows. When she was in nursery school, her mother would often buy manga magazines aimed at an older female demographic, such as Bessatsu Margaret, Bessatsu Friend and Bessatsu Shōjo Comic. Her older brother, on the other hand, often read Weekly Shonen Jump. While in elementary school, Tanemura's friend lent her a copy of Ribon, and she became fascinated with its childish art style, later convincing her mother's co-worker to buy her a copy. Throughout elementary school, she also read Margaret regularly, and she began reading Shōjo Comic in junior high school. Tanemura began drawing at the age of 5. She was heavily influenced by shōjo manga works from her childhood, and she mostly drew female characters. She started drawing manga beginning in spring break of her first year in high school, during which she stated she made her first submission to an amateur manga contest. At the same time, her female cousin had expressed interest in reading a story about a character Tanemura had drawn for her multiple times. Tanemura described her submission as a "dark" and "sad" story about the main character's boyfriend dying in a traffic accident and later being approached by his brother. Despite not winning, she later stated that she had passed the first round and earned from the contest. Afterwards, she began practicing by drawing yonkoma.