Ochazukenori

Ochazukenori was born in Kawasaki in 1960. He began reading manga from rental bookstores as a child, later he read Weekly Shōnen Sunday and Weekly Shōnen Magazine and drew manga inspired by {{ill|Satoru Ozawa|ja|小澤さとる}}'s Submarine 707.{{Cite web |date=January 8, 2020 |title=Interview with トラウマ必至のホラー漫画家 オチャヅケノリ 御茶漬海苔 |url=https://cheers.com.au/info/3608 |access-date=February 23, 2023 |website=Cheers}} In his youth and while attending Rissho University in Tokyo,{{Cite web |last= |first= |title=御茶漬海苔（漫画家） |url=https://mangapedia.com/%E5%BE%A1%E8%8C%B6%E6%BC%AC%E6%B5%B7%E8%8B%94-r41urz2wy |access-date=February 23, 2023 |website=Mangapedia |language=ja}} he drew doujinshi together with friends. When he wanted to start his career as a professional manga artist, he had to send money to his parents to convince them of his career decision, as they wanted him to take over their hardware store. His doujinshi anthology Pen Touch gained a following for its obscure content. In parallel, he worked as an assistant first for manga artist Nasubi Fujitaka and then {{ill|Takeshi Ebihara|ja|えびはら武司}}. He started his career as a professional artist in 1984 in the lolicon magazine Lemon People with the short story "Seireijima".{{Cite book |last=Ledoux |first=Trish |url= |title=Anime interviews : the first five years of Animerica, anime & Manga monthly (1992–97) |date=1997 |publisher=Cadence Books |isbn=1-56931-220-6 |pages=62 |oclc=38160911}}{{Cite web |title=Ochazukenori |url=https://www.lambiek.net/artists/o/ochazukenori.htm |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=lambiek.net |language=en}}{{Cite web |title=OCHAZUKENORI |url=https://www.manga-news.com/index.php/auteur/Ochazukenori |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=manga-news.com |language=fr}}{{Cite web |last=Adler |first=Renzo |date=2021-07-31 |title=Monthly Halloween: How American Horror was Translated for Shoujo Manga |url=https://www.zimmerit.moe/monthly-halloween-american-horror-shoujo-manga/ |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=ZIMMERIT – Anime {{!}} Manga {{!}} Garage Kits {{!}} Doujin |language=en-US}} His pseudonym Ochazukenori is the name of a rice dish with green tea and dried algae. He chose it, because it is similar to his birth name and because another manga artist suggested it to him and he like it.

His first published works outside of lolicon magazines were with the publisher Asahi Sonorama, starting with the short story "Tōkyō ni Yukinofurubi" in 1986. While these manga were science fiction, he received more positive response from readers for his horror manga that he drew for the magazine Monthly Halloween, beginning with the short story "Blind". With the series Zangekikan ("The Horror Mansion"), which he serialized from 1987 until 1993, he shifted fully towards horror manga. He specialized in short stories or episodic series and was a regular contributor to the big horror manga magazines of the 1980s and 1990s like Monthly Halloween, Horror M and {{ill|Suspiria (magazine){{!}}Suspiria|ja|サスペリアミステリー}}. At the peak of his career, he drew over 100 pages a month for various monthly magazines.

When the serial murderer Tsutomu Miyazaki sparked a public discourse around horror manga in the early 1990s, Ochazukenori received phone calls at home about how his manga would promote criminal activity.

He also became active as a film director, adapting three of the stories from his Zangekikan series into live-action films in 2008. One of the three episodes, Bathroom, won a film prize at an arthouse film festival.{{Cite web |title=ホラー漫画原画展【マスターオブホラー地獄の舞踏会】{{pipe}}レッツエンジョイ東京 |url=https://www.enjoytokyo.jp/event/800372/ |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=レッツエンジョイ東京 |language=ja}}

He published only little new work in the 2000s, but became more active again in the 2010s. He focused on drawing web manga.

He is known for an aesthetic of splatter and gore. The center of his stories is often mental illness,{{Cite web |title=Meet Ochazukenori: A Horror Manga Artist on All Things Horror Manga |url=https://jpf.org.au/events/meet-ochazukenori-horror-manga-artist/ |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=The Japan Foundation, Sydney |language=en-AU}} with depictions of bloody corpses, fratricide and torture. His character design is angular.{{Cite web |title=Trick or Treat |url=http://www.ceiling-gallery.com/blog/2015/10/6/halloween |access-date=2023-02-23 |website=Ceiling Gallery |language=en-US}} Ochazukenori keeps drawing by hand; he says "If you draw with a pen tablet, the manuscript will not remain. So if there is a power outage, you won't be able to read it".

Manga artist Yoshiki Takaya calls Ochazukenori an early influence, as Takaya was contributing to his doujinshi anthology Pen Touch. He recalled: "The kind of stories that Nori was drawing weren't what you'd call 'popular.' Our fanzine was the only place where he could create his own ideal manga."

Singer Kyōko Koizumi is a fan of his manga, letting him write the lyrics for her song Kōri no Toshi (凍りの都市) from the album Hippies and make a manga based on it. She also wrote the recommendation on the obi of Kyōfu Terebi TVO: Ochazukenori Jisenshu (恐怖テレビ（TVO）御茶漬海苔自選集), saying Ochazukenori's horror is like a fairy tale. Pure, beautiful and so, so scary.

Ochazukenori has gained some international recognition for his manga. His work has been translated into French. The Japan Foundation in Sydney exhibited his work as part of the exhibition Retro Horror: Supernatural and the Occult in Postwar Japanese Manga from 2019 until 2021.

{{reflist}}

• [http://ochazukenori.nobu-naga.net/ Official website] (in Japanese)

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Category:1960 births

Category:Manga artists from Kanagawa Prefecture

Category:Living people

Category:Japanese horror writers