Manga Creator Kunichika Harada Dies at 73 Due to Heart Attack
His family held a private funeral.Harada was born in 1951 in Fukuoka. He made his manga debut in the winter season supplemental issue for Weekly Shonen Sunday in 1978. He is perhaps best known for drawing the art for the manga Pro Wrestling Superstar Retsuden, which Ikki Kajiwara wrote. The manga ran in Shogakukan's Weekly Shonen Sunday magazine from 1980 to 1983, and spawned 17 compiled book volumes. The manga dramatized the biographies of real-life pro wrestlers at the time, including the Tiger Mask persona, which itself was based on Ikki Kajiwara and Naoki Tsuji's Tiger Mask manga.Harada's other notable work is drawing the art for the manga Kimura, with Toshinari Masuda writing the story. The manga dramatizes the life of judo practitioner Masahiko Kimura, whose defeat of Brazilian martial artist Helio Gracie with a double wristlock gyaku ude-garami in 1951 forever popularized the move as "The Kimura" in combat sports and systems, and became a popular submission and disarming move. The manga ran in Futabasha's Shūkan Taishū magazine from 2013 to 2016, and spawned 13 volumes.Sources: PR Times, Comic Natalie
