Ken Akamatsu (赤松健 Akamatsu Ken) is a manga artist, born in Kanagawa prefecture, Japan, on July 5, 1968. Most of his works involve ecchi, often having a male protagonist being surrounded by numerous girls.

Biography:

1. Full name: Ken Akamatsu
2. Job: Tentatively, cartoonist
3. Height: 168 cm.
4. Weight: 50 kg.
5. Blood type: B
6. Education: Department of Literature country literature course graduate of Chuo University

In his teenage years, Ken failed the entrance exam to Tokyo University, and applied for Film Study instead, (it is speculated, in fact, that this is where Ken got his idea for Love Hina). Eventually, he became famous as an illustrator featured in Comiket (short for Comic Market, a comic convention annually held in Japan). He used the pen name Awa Mizuno - poor and unfortunate but full of hopes and dreams. Ken, still in college, then proceeded to win the Weekly Shonen magazine awards twice. His "A Kid's Game for One Summer" was awarded the coveted 50th Shonen magazine Newcomer's Award soon after he graduated.

After a big hit with A.I. Love You, Ken finally made a grand success with his new manga, Love Hina. The series appeared in Shukan Shonen magazine and has been collected in eleven volumes (with fourteen volumes in total), which have sold over 6 million copies in Japan. Ken had added elements of his own life experiences to the story, and this was said to have induced an unique feeling to the manga especially for western readers, whose lack of familiarity with Japanese culture for the most part added to the effect. The series, published in America in 2002, was especially well received in many overseas countries - Ken was surprised that even foreign readers found Love Hina to be "cute" and to their liking.

Ken is now currently working on his latest manga series, Negima: Magister Negi Magi, which has also been made in to an anime series.

Manga Works

• A.I. Love You
• Love Hina
• Negima: Magister Negi Magi

Anime Works

• Love Hina
• Earth Defender Mao-chan (story, character designs)

External links

• Ken Akamatsu's homepage (in Japanese)