Akimi Yoshida first appeared in manga in 1977 with the college manga story A SLIGHTLY STRANGE NEIGHBOR. Her most popular series, BANANA FISH, ran from 1985 to 1994 and established her as a shojo manga superstar, infusing the genre with new realism and narrative vitality and drawing a big male crossover readership. Yoshida received the top yearly prize for excellence in shojo from Japanese publishing giant Shogakukan twice.