Takehiko Inoue is a manga artist from Okuchi, Kagoshima. He burst onto the scene in 1988 with "Purple Kaede," which won the 35th Tezuka Award and appeared in Weekly Shounen Jump.
He's best known for Slam Dunk, his hugely popular basketball manga that ran in Weekly Shounen Jump from 1990 to 1996. The series became a phenomenon—it's sold over 157 million copies worldwide and was voted Japan's favorite manga in 2007. It also snagged the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for shounen manga in 1995.
After that success, Inoue shifted gears with Vagabond, a more mature take on the samurai legend. The series earned him the Kodansha Manga Award for General manga in 2000 and the prestigious Osamu Tezuka Culture Award in 2002. He was later recognized with the Cultural Prize at the Asia Cosmopolitan Awards in 2012, becoming its first recipient.
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