Naho Ooishi's Identity Revealed: A Doujinshi Artist

[kei17]

I guess many folks have been curious about the identity of Naho Ooishi, a mysterious mangaka who suddenly popped up and took over Dragon Ball manga adaptations. A little while ago, I found a tweet pointing out that Ooishi's style extremely looks like that of Gichi, a doujin artist.


http://dbnetwork.freeblog.hu/archives/2 ... si_Munkai/








As far as I can see, it indeed is 100% identical to Ooishi's. In addition, Gichi suddenly went silent in 2008, and seems to have removed her own site in early 2009, which completely coincides with Ooishi's debut as a pro mangaka with the manga adaptation of "Heya! Son Goku and Friends Return". Considering that headhunting doujin artists is very common among the manga industry these days, there is no doubt that Shueisha hired Gichi, a talented doujin artist, and let her debut under her real name, Naho Ooishi.


For your information, Ooishi seems to like yaoi stuff:
http://dragonball.cart.fc2.com/ca13/293/
http://dragonball.cart.fc2.com/ca13/346/
http://dragonball.cart.fc2.com/ca13/330/


Gichi's website:

http://web.archive.org/web/200901262038 ... 2/top.html

[Son_Gohan]

Is there a stigma that comes with being a dojinshi artist, or would it not be seen as a big deal over there?

[Scarz]

Hm, interesting. I've seen doujins by Gichi before and I would have never guessed it was Ooishi. One thing that really bugs me is why did she remove her site? Is it because of the yaoi doujins and she didn't want it to effect her career?

[Michsi]

Is it because of the yaoi doujins and she didn't want it to effect her career?

She did yaoi doujinshi too? I can imagine that a lot of people would look at her stuff differently if that were true...

[Gyt Kaliba]

Oh wow, that really does look exactly like her stuff. That's an awesome find, thanks for sharing this kei17.

Is it because of the yaoi doujins and she didn't want it to effect her career?

She did yaoi doujinshi too? I can imagine that a lot of people would look at her stuff differently if that were true...

I can see how she'd be worried about that for sure, but I don't really think it'd make me change my thoughts on her at all. What she does in her fan works of Dragon Ball compared to what she does for actual publication are two entirely different spectrums IMO. Heck, the Tenchi Muyo author put out actual hentai of his franchise I believe.

[Chuquita]

I've seen those covers before and it never clicked for me that it was the same artist. I think it's pretty cool that she worked on DB doujinshi before getting to do authorized DB work.

[Rukura]

That awkward moment when it occurs to me that we maybe could've had Toyble writting new stories and getting them animated. Damn it.

[Michsi]

Strange thing is, while she is good, I have to admit I've seen better DB artist out there. I wonder what made her stand out?

[shonenhikada]

Hmm so Akira Toriyama hired a Yaoi artist to do official work and even gave her approval for anything she makes to be cannon rather than give it to the guys who make this kind of animation style for db characters ?



What the actual heck Akira ?

[StarRot]

Is there a stigma that comes with being a dojinshi artist, or would it not be seen as a big deal over there?

I don't think so.
A fair amount of manga creators started off as doujinshi artists anyway, such as CLAMP for example.

[KaiserNeko]

Hmm so Akira Toriyama hired a Yaoi artist to do official work and even gave her approval for anything she makes to be cannon rather than give it to the guys who make this kind of animation style for db characters ?



What the actual heck Akira ?

Toriyama probably had little to nothing to do with her being hired.

[AgitoZ]

Hmm so Akira Toriyama hired a Yaoi artist to do official work and even gave her approval for anything she makes to be cannon rather than give it to the guys who make this kind of animation style for db characters ?



What the actual heck Akira ?

On a first name basis are ya?

Anyways, I seriously doubt that Toriyama personally hired her to do DB related material. If anything, it was more like she got hired by Shueisha and Toriyama gave his blessing.

It's not that surprising that doujishi artist broke into the industry, many famous authors got their start doing fan works (Clamp, Rumiko Takahashi, whoever did Azumanga Daioh, etc). Hell, like someone has already mentioned ,many authors have done such works for their own creations.

As for why they didn't give to someone at Toei, I think it's because they already have their hands full and that drawing comics is vastly different than doing character designs or animating a scene.

[Cipher]

Is it because of the yaoi doujins and she didn't want it to effect her career?

My guess, knowing almost nothing of Japanese media law, would be that she didn't want to host unofficial work now that she's an official Dragon Ball manga artist, lest it reflect upon JUMP/Shueisha/whoever else. It may even have been a corporate mandate. My guess is it would've been protocol even without any sexual content; you just don't want an official artist and writer hosting unofficial stories at the same time. It's sloppy, confusing, and dangerous since the actual IP-owners can't weigh in on the content.

Heck, the Tenchi Muyo author put out actual hentai of his franchise I believe.

If the Tenchi Muyo author created and owns those characters, though, that's different. Ooishi is using these characters work-for-hire. Toriyama could've drawn Dragon Ball porn if he wanted, and the most JUMP could've done would be to cease publishing the series, I suppose.

Also, doujinshi using established characters for profit are technically illegal anyway, aren't they? That's the impression I've always had, just that it's usually overlooked and that Japan is much more lax than the West about copyright as a whole.

[DaemonCorps]

That awkward moment when it occurs to me that we maybe could've had Toyble writting new stories and getting them animated. Damn it.

This. Not really knocking Ooishi, but it would've rocked to have someone like Toyble as an official part of the DB team.

As for hiding past works, I'm pretty sure there woulda been some kind of stigma had this been found out when she was immediately picked up. If memory serves there was at least a small-scale stink when people found out the Takeshi Obata did some risque stuff before Death Note.

[AgitoZ]

That awkward moment when it occurs to me that we maybe could've had Toyble writting new stories and getting them animated. Damn it.

This. Not really knocking Ooishi, but it would've rocked to have someone like Toyble as an official part of the DB team.

This all under the assumption that Ooishi gets creative freedom when doing DB, right?

[DaemonCorps]

This all under the assumption that Ooishi gets creative freedom when doing DB, right?

Well even in the case that they didn't, I still would have preferred someone with a closer art style to Toriyama. Not the biggest fan of Ooishi.

[VegettoEX]

I had no idea they were making official Dragon Ball cannons. Does she have an interest in mechanical design like Toriyama does? That would be a neat coincidence.

[Rukura]

That awkward moment when it occurs to me that we maybe could've had Toyble writting new stories and getting them animated. Damn it.

This. Not really knocking Ooishi, but it would've rocked to have someone like Toyble as an official part of the DB team.

This all under the assumption that Ooishi gets creative freedom when doing DB, right?

She must've had some freedom with Episode of Bardock. I would think so, at least. Even somewhat with Dragon Ball SD.

While I did enjoy Episode of Bardock (for what it was), I would've loved to see something like Toyble's Dragon Ball Zero (Saiyan backstory, Raditz and Tullece as kids) animated. Hell, quite a few members of this forum (me included) shed a tear when reading Toyble's AF's final chapter, with Kame-sennin and Goku.

I had no idea they were making official Dragon Ball cannons. Does she have an interest in mechanical design like Toriyama does? That would be a neat coincidence.

That one needs a filter for sure. It's not like anyone's talking about the Red Ribbon's arsenal anyway either lol.

[Kendamu]

Wasn't there something to be said for awhile about Toyble supposedly tracing from actual DB manga panels in his DBAF manga? Maybe that's a part of why he wasn't hired.

[shonenhikada]

Wasn't there something to be said for awhile about Toyble supposedly tracing from actual DB manga panels in his DBAF manga? Maybe that's a part of why he wasn't hired.

Would explain why the character designs are heavily re-used in the series, with a few variation here and there. I always felt DBAF just re-used work from Akira Toriyama.

The best candidate to carry on Akira Toriyama work is Kristina (aka AnnouncerGuy)

Some of her work
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs41/f/2009/ ... cerGuy.png
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs18/f/2007/ ... cerGuy.jpg
http://fc02.deviantart.net/fs32/f/2008/ ... cerGuy.png
http://fc04.deviantart.net/fs15/f/2007/ ... cerGuy.jpg
http://fc06.deviantart.net/fs13/f/2007/ ... cerGuy.jpg
http://th01.deviantart.net/fs14/PRE/f/2 ... cerGuy.jpg
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs16/f/2007/ ... cerGuy.png
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs16/f/2007/ ... cerGuy.jpg

Her gallery
http://announcerguy.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48

Why Toriyama didn't pick her ? She seems creative enough. I think she would make a wonderful successor to Akira Toriyama.