Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro

Mitsutoshi Shimabukuro (島袋 光年, Shimabukuro Mitsutoshi) is a Japanese manga artist. He made his debut in 1996 in Weekly Shounen Jump and received a Akatsuka Award for best new comic manga writer. He is best known for Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi! (世紀末リーダー伝たけし!, "A Tale of a Leader in the End of the Century Takeshi!" (1997–2002, 24 volumes), for which he won the 2001 Shogakukan Manga Award for children's manga. His current series is Toriko (トリコ), which began serialization in Shuukan Shounen Jump in 2008.

Shimabukuro is friends with Eiichiro Oda, author of One Piece. SASAKI Takeshi was once an assistant.

In 2002, he was arrested and convicted of violating child prostitution laws, including paying a 16-year-old girl ¥80,000 to have sex. As a result of the arrest, Seikimatsu Leader Den Takeshi! was cancelled by Shuukan Shounen Jump.

(Source: MU)