Masami Kurumada was born in December 6th, 1953, in Tokyo, As a young man he dreamt of becoming a sailor, but in high school he discovered his true vocation, the art of storytelling. Kurumada read "Ashita no Joe" (a Box-Fight manga by Tetsuya Chiba) and realised that he wanted to do something like that as well. He started to draw some mangas of his own and sent some of them to publishers all over the country. Shueisha saw his work "Otoko Raku", a story about boxing and published it, in 1974, when Kurumada was only 21 years old. Kurumada quickly began working on another story, "Sukeban Arashi", the story of Rei Kojin-Yama, a girl with a male atittude that leads a female gang. "Sukeban Arashi" can be considered his first hit. It lasted two years, from 1974 to 1975 and was published in the "Shuukan (weekly) Shounen Jump" magazine. It was later collected in 3 tankobon (pocket manga). With the ending of "Sukeban Arashi", Kurumada published a short story in "Shuukan Shounen Jump", named "Mikereko Rock". He then made a 2-year vacation, to make a successful comeback...