Maki Murakami

Maki Murakami (村上真紀, Murakami Maki) is a Japanese manga artist most famous for the boys love manga Gravitation, which, in addition to the Gravitation novel, is published in the U.S. by Tokyopop. Gravitation was the first BL to have broken into mainstream leading way for the overwhelming popularity of yaoi/shounen-ai today. There are twelve volumes currently available; and she is continuing the series with Gravitation EX, there are also two novels (one of which is written by Murakami herself).She also has written several issues of yaoi dōjinshi, published by her dōjinshi circle: Crocodile Avenue. Rimigra aka Remix Gravitation is the most popular and consists of sexual content but of quite a mild nature, unlike Megamix Gravitation, which is very explicit and detailed. Gravitation was so successful it has its own anime series, which consists of 13 episodes as well as two "Lyrics of Love" OVAs. She has created other manga, but Gravitation is the most famous.

History

She began working as an assistant to the older sister of one of her friends, drawing hentai manga, while she was still in high school, and produced many dojinshi about musicians.

Maki Murakami has continued the Gravitation series with Gravitation EX, which has also been licensed by Tokyopop. Gravitation EX only consists of 1 volume in English and the second one is currently being published by Gentosha comics in Japanese.

Her work Gamerz Heaven was licensed by ADV Films in North America with the first two volumes, but the third and fourth are not yet translated.

She is also the creator of Kanpai! which was published by Tokyopop, but only has two volumes and it is unknown if it will eventually be continued by her.

She is one of many manga artists who draws her own dōjinshi including Gravitation Remix 1-12, Gravitation Megamix EST, Gravitation Megamix Panda, Gravitation Megamix Kumagoro, Gravitation Megamix Capybara, Kanpai! DJ: Unapai, Gamerz Heaven DJ:Director's Cut.

She is shy of being photographed, as it was reported on the Otakon 2007 website, where it is stated that "A condition of her visit is that there be no photographs taken of her while she's at Otakon".

• Gravitation (1996–2002, Gentosha)
• Kanpai! (2001, Gentosha)
• Gamerz Heaven (2003–2005, serialized in Comic Blade, Mag Garden)
• Gravitation Ex (2007–ongoing, Gentosha)