Ken Akamatsu | |
|---|---|
赤松 健 | |
 Official portrait, 2024 | |
| Member of theHouse of Councillors | |
| Assumed office July 26, 2022 | |
| Constituency | National PR |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1968-07-05)July 5, 1968 (age 57) |
| Political party | Liberal Democratic |
| Spouse | Kanon Akamatsu |
| Children | 2 |
| Education | Chuo University |
| Occupation | Manga artist,politician |
| Known for | Love Hina,Negima! Magister Negi Magi,UQ Holder! |
| Awards |
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| Years active | 1993–present |
| Signature |  |
| Website | kenakamatsu |
Ken Akamatsu (Japanese:赤松 健,Hepburn:Akamatsu Ken; born July 5, 1968) is a Japanesemanga artist and politician who has served since 2022 as a member of theHouse of Councillors. He made his professional manga debut in 1993, and is best known as the author ofLove Hina (1998–2001) andNegima! Magister Negi Magi (2003–2012), both serialized inWeekly Shōnen Magazine; a sequel toNegima!,UQ Holder!, was serialized from 2013 to 2022. In 2011, Akamatsu foundedJ-Comi (now Manga Library Z), a free digital distributor of out-of-print manga.
Akamatsu has been a managing director of theJapan Cartoonists Association since 2018, and is a vocal advocate for protectingfreedom of expression in manga and anime from expansions in censorship and copyright law. In the2022 Japanese House of Councillors election, he won a seat as a candidate for theLiberal Democratic Party in thenational proportional representation block on a free expression platform, becoming the first manga creator in theNational Diet. On November 13, 2024, he was appointed Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and Parliamentary Vice-Minister for Reconstruction as part of theSecond Ishiba Cabinet.[1]
Ken Akamatsu was born inNagoya,Aichi Prefecture,[2] on July 5, 1968.[3] His father, a bureaucrat in theMinistry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, was often transferred, and the family lived inYamagata, theKita ward of Tokyo,Kumamoto,Higashikurume, andKawasaki.[2] Akamatsu attended private Kaijō High School inShinjuku, Tokyo, and enteredChuo University's Department of Japanese Literature.[4] He has citedSailor Moon as his introduction to anime and manga.[5] While in college, he was active as adoujinshi creator and sold works atComiket under the pen name Awa Mizuno (水野 亜和,Mizuno Awa).[2]
In 1993, Akamatsu won the 50th Shōnen Magazine Newcomer Award for his debut workHito Natsu no Kids Game, published inKodansha'sMagazine Fresh.[6] The following year, he began serializingA.I. Love You (1994–1997) in the publisher'sWeekly Shōnen Magazine.Love Hina, published in the magazine from 1998 to 2001, established his popularity, and in 2001 earned him the 25thKodansha Manga Award (in theshōnen category).[6] His next work,Negima! Magister Negi Magi, was serialized from 2003 to 2012, also inWeekly Shōnen Magazine.[6] Akamatsu's latest manga serial isUQ Holder!, a sequel toNegima! which debuted in the magazine in 2013; it was later transferred toBessatsu Shōnen Magazine and concluded in 2022.[7] The volumes ofUQ Holder! became the first to carry a "Doujin Mark" indicating explicit author permission for use as a source for fan-made works, the result of a publishing initiative led by Akamatsu.[8]
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In 2010, Akamatsu launched a beta test ofJ-Comi (now Manga Library Z), a free manga download site for out-of-print titles. As the first release, he posted all 14 volumes ofLove Hina with six pages of advertising and nodigital rights management (DRM) for one month. Manga publishers Kodansha andShueisha began collaborating with the site after the test, and the site formally launched in 2011. The site gained notoriety later that year when it posted Seiji Matsuyama'sOku-sama wa Shōgakusei [ja] ("My Wife Is an Elementary Student") manga, which Tokyo Vice GovernorNaoki Inose had cited as an example of a work that should be restricted for physical sale under Tokyo's recently revisedHealthy Development of Youths Ordinance.[9]
As of 2022, Akamatsu's manga have a cumulative circulation of over 50 million worldwide.[4] HisLove Hina,Negima! Magister Negi Magi, andUQ Holder! have been adapted as anime series;Negima! has also been adapted as a live-action television series.
Akamatsu is a vocal advocate for protection offreedom of expression in anime and manga, and has been an opponent of government attempts to expand censorship and copyright law.[10]
In 2011, he warned that proposed changes to copyright law under the proposedTrans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) would "destroy" Japan's derivativedoujin scene; he continued to voice his concerns in following years.[10] In 2013, as spokesman of theJapan Cartoonists Association (JCA), he joined other creators in opposing theLiberal Democratic Party (LDP) and its partners' proposed amendment to Japan's child pornography laws, the draft version of which included wholly-fictional depictions such aslolicon manga in its definitions. Akamatsu visited theNational Diet and the LDP headquarters to express his concern, and the final bill passed in 2014 without a ban on explicit anime and manga.[10] He was appointed a managing director of the JCA in 2018.[3] In 2019, Akamatsu and the JCA expressed concern on a government subcommittee's plan to expand copyright law, under which downloading or taking screenshots of anime images and illustrations illegally posted to blogs andTwitter would have been made illegal, as would copying and pasting song lyrics.[10] In 2020, Akamatsu was invited to advise legislators in the Diet on the future of manga, stating that "[c]ompared to other countries, Japan's forte is its freedom of creativity" and that "a situation where Japanese works are regulated by foreign standards" should be avoided.[8]
In December 2021, Akamatsu announced a candidacy in the2022 election for thenational proportional representation block of theHouse of Councillors, the upper house of the Diet, under the LDP banner. He stated that his major goal was to protect creative freedom of expression, and during the election campaign criticized "external pressure" (both foreign and domestic) to regulate Japan's "freedom of expression, especially for manga, anime, and games", elaborating that such regulations need to be "approached with rationality".[10] On July 10, 2022, Akamatsu won a seat after campaigning in person in all 47 prefectures, becoming the first manga creator in the National Diet.[10] An early initiative of his was a task force on a proposed legal framework for preservation of past and present Japanese video games in a playable state.[11] Since his election, Akamatsu has been pursuing "manga diplomacy", and he argued that capitalizing on intellectual property would strongly benefit Japan.[12]
Akamatsu is married to Kanon Akamatsu, a professionalcosplayer and formeridol;[13] they have two daughters.[3]
