Chica Umino is a Japanese manga artist from Adachi, Tokyo. She worked in merchandise design and illustration before making her manga debut in 2000 with “Honey and Clover.” Set among art students sharing an apartment, the series explores unrequited love, doubts about artistic talent, and uncertainty over life after graduation. It received the shojo category of the 27th Kodansha Manga Award in 2003. Following the closure of its magazines, the series moved from CUTiE Comic to Young You and then Chorus, where it concluded in 2006. It was adapted for animation, live-action film, and television drama. In 2007 Umino began “March Comes in Like a Lion” in Young Animal, with professional shogi player Manabu Senzaki supervising its treatment of the game. Its protagonist, Rei Kiriyama, lost his family in an accident and became a professional player while still a teenager. Alongside the pressures of competition, the story follows his relationship with the three Kawamoto sisters and his gradual movement out of isolation. The series won the Manga Taisho and the general category of the Kodansha Manga Award in 2011, the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize’s Manga Grand Prize in 2014, and the Manga Division Grand Prize at the 24th Japan Media Arts Festival in 2021.
