Biography | Mitsutoshi Furuya

Mitsutoshi Furuya (1936-2021) started his career in 1955 with the beautiful 'Hill of Orange Flowers' published by Shimamura Publishing ! After a couple of years drawing mainly kashihon (rental manga) he found his way to Osamu Tezuka's studio but his true calling was as an assistant of Fujio Akatsuka five years later.

Since Mitsutoshi Furuya and Fujio Akatsuka were about the same age, their relationship was more one of close friends than student-teacher ...
To the outside world he was considered the mainstay, the pillar of the studio !

Mitsutoshi was best known for 'Dame Oyaji' (No-Good Dad, 1970–1982) which had a dark comic, satirical insight of life in a Japanese family with a weak, pathetic father married to a cruel and savage wife. With the 'Shogakukan Manga Award for shõnen', a movie adaptation and an anime television series, this was most definitely his biggest success!
Whilst 'Dame Oyaji' was a hot topic as a Shõnen (manga for boys) , 'Mother-Longing Chidori' was even more disturbing and disgusting! Also because it was published as a girl's manga in Princess mangazine!

The setting can be described as a girl's manga version of 'Dame Oyaji', and the story is about Chidori, a beautiful girl with poor fortune, who suffers mental and physical bullying whilst dreaming of meeting her estranged mother. (spoiler alert; the final episode has a happy ending)

In addition to being a manga artist, he has taught illustration & manga courses on Nippon Television's 'Good Morning! Children's Show'
Also in addition to being a mangaka, he attended bartending classes and obtained his bartending diploma [There is a chapter depicting this experience in the semi-autobiographical manga 'BAR Lemon Heart']
He opened a bar with the same name as the manga [Bar Lemon Heart], later run by his grandson but unconfirmed if it remained open after the passing of Mitsutoshi Furuya

His list of published manga is way too long to sum up | underneath is a short list of must haves / must reads :

Pinky-chan (1968-69, Weekly Shoujo Friend)
Princess Pudding-chan (1969, Nakayoshi)
Dame Oyaji (1970-1982, Weekly Shonen Sunday)
Gutara Mama (1975-2020, Mainichi Shimbun)
Bar Lemon Heart (1985-2021, Manga action)
Dokudami Sensei (1973-74, Weekly Shonen Champion)
Floating World Bed (1997?) 
and obviously : Mother Longing Chidori