Riichiro Inagaki

Riichiro Inagaki (Japanese: 稲垣 理一郎, Hepburn: Inagaki Riichirō, born June 20, 1976) is a Japanese manga writer from Tokyo. He is best known for the manga Eyeshield 21, on which he collaborated with artist Yusuke Murata. Eyeshield 21 was serialized between July 2002 and June 2009 in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and was later adapted into an anime television series.

Born on June 20, 1976, in Tokyo, Inagaki started to like manga when he read Fujiko Fujio's Manga Michi in middle school. In 1994, he competed at the third Manga Kōshien, a high school manga contest based in Kōchi Prefecture. As it only demanded a one-panel story, Inagaki just threw some ink on the paper to look like he had messed up the story. He said, "People really liked that for some reason. But Manga Koshien isn't something I'm so fond of remembering". After finishing school, he enrolled in a manga and film production company as animation assistant. He started his career as professional manga writer by publishing works in Shogakukan's Big Comic Spirits. He debuted in October 2001 with Nandodemo Roku Gatsu Jū San Hi, and also wrote for the magazine Square Freeze and Love Love Santa, published in November 2001 and in February 2002 respectively. He later moved to Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump, in which he won the 7th "Story King" award for a storyboard of Eyeshield 21.

When he planned to create Eyeshield 21, the editorial department asked if he wanted to both write and draw the series, but Inagaki felt he was "so rookie". So he asked Yusuke Murata to be the illustrator. In 2002, they published two one-shots called Eyeshield Part 1 (前編, Zenpen) and Part 2 (後編, Kōhen) on March 5 and 12 in Weekly Shōnen Jump. The series began to be regularly published on July 23 of the same year in the same magazine. It spanned 333 chapters, the last one published on June 15, 2009, and the series was collected in 37 volumes. An anime adaptation, directed by Masayoshi Nishida and co-produced by TV Tokyo, NAS, and Gallop, aired from April 2005 to March 2008. For the release of Eyeshield 21 anime he created the Kome Studio, a company of copyright management to ensure the right of the original creators of manga. The company name, which translates to "rice", was chosen for three reasons: 1) because "Inagaki" contains a kanji ("稲") that can be translated to rice; 2) because "rice" kanji ("米") is also used to represent the United States; and 3) because of the Rice Bowl, an American football championship in Japan.

In 2006, he was chosen, along with Akira Toriyama and Eiichiro Oda, to be a committee member for the Tezuka Award. In June 2010, he published Kiba&Kiba in Weekly Shōnen Jump along with Bonjae, and his collaboration work with Katsunori Matsui, Shinpai Kato No Face, was published in the 2011 first issue of Weekly Young Jump. He published another collaborative work with Matsui, Alpha Centauri Dōbutsuen; a two-chapter series, it was published on January 10 and February 10, 2014 in the Jump X magazine.

• Nandodemo Roku Gatsu Jū San Hi (何度でも6月13日, lit. "Any Number of Times on the 13th of June") (2001)
• Square Freeze (スクウェアフリーズ, Sukuea Furīzu) (2001)
• Love Love Santa (LOVE LOVE サンタ) (2002)
• Eyeshield 21 (アイシールド21, Aishīrudo Nijūichi) (one-shot with Yusuke Murata; 2002)
• Eyeshield 21 (series with Yusuke Murata; 2002–2009)
• Kiba&Kiba (with Bonjae; 2010)
• Shinpai Kato No Face (心配怪盗 NO FACE) (with Katsunori Matsui; 2011)
• Alpha Centauri Dōbutsuen (αケンタウリ動物園, lit. "Alpha Centauri Zoo") (with Katsunori Matsui; 2014)