Jun Ishikawa (born 1951) is a Japanese manga artist and critic from Toyota, Aichi Prefecture. After graduating from Meiji University and working at Toyota Motor Corporation, he became a manga artist. His work includes manga, novels, and essays, and he appeared on NHK’s television program “BS Manga Yawa,” discussing the artwork and techniques used in manga. His critical collection “Manga no Jikan” (Manga Time) explains how to read manga from a practicing artist’s perspective. Examining drawing styles, panel arrangements, and the conventions of the medium, he shows how pictures and stories communicate with readers. The book also introduces approximately one hundred works across different genres. His long-form manga “Kichijoji Catwalk,” set around a café in Tokyo’s Kichijoji neighborhood, follows Konatsu, a high school student who starts working there and meets Kaoru, a local yakuza member. Her attraction to him develops alongside the relationships among the café’s regulars, each with their own circumstances. His autobiographical manga “Mimi Sho: Kichijoji de Kurasu Mimi to Shotaro no Monogatari” (Mimi and Shotaro: Life in Kichijoji) depicts his family’s everyday life with their cats, centering on the somewhat plump Shotaro and the smaller Mimi. It also includes photographs of the cats.
