Furudate Haruichi

Haruichi Furudate (Japanese: 古舘 春一, Hepburn: Furudate Haruichi, born March 7, 1983) is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for creating Haikyu!!.

Furudate wrote Haikyu!! starting as two one-shots that were published in Jump NEXT! and Weekly Shōnen Jump in January 2011 and April 2011 respectively. The one-shots were later turned into a full series, which started serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump on February 20, 2012. The series ended in Weekly Shōnen Jump on July 20, 2020. While the series was serializing, it was awarded the 61st Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category and ranked in the top three manga series for the 2015 Sugoi Japan Award. In 2020, the series was in the top five best selling manga in Japan, with over seven million copies sold. The series has also been given numerous adaptations, notably an anime television series and a stage play.

In the early stage of the serialization of Haikyu!!, in order not to make readers feel bored, Furudate tried various storyboards, but the neighbor thought it was difficult to understand; later, Furudate saw a passenger on the train reading "JUMP" and skipped Haikyu!!. Furudate was deeply affected, so he made up his mind to improve the storyboard and painting style to make it more concise and easy to understand.