Takehiko Inoue

Okay, let me just say it: this is the guy who drew Slam Dunk, and honestly that alone makes him a quiet menace, because he single-handedly stuffed basketball courts across Japan with kids yelling "left hand's just for support." But here's what gets me about Takehiko Inoue. He could've coasted forever on that sports-manga glory, and instead he went and started Vagabond, a samurai epic he renders in these jaw-dropping ink-brush panels that look like museum pieces. Then there's Real, his wheelchair-basketball story, which somehow hits even harder. The man can draw sweat, doubt, and silence with a single pen, and he's not afraid to vanish mid-serialization for ages. I genuinely love that we get to live in his era and just wait for whatever he does next.

Takehiko Inoue (born January 12, 1967 in Isa, Kagoshima) is a Japanese manga artist whose basketball series SLAM DUNK, serialized in Weekly Shonen Jump from 1990 to 1996, became one of the best-selling manga of all time and is widely credited with sparking a basketball boom in Japan. He followed it with Vagabond, a sweeping historical drama about swordsman Miyamoto Musashi serialized in Morning since 1998, and Real, a manga about wheelchair basketball serialized in Weekly Young Jump since 1999. In 2022 he wrote and directed the animated film THE FIRST SLAM DUNK, his debut as a filmmaker.

Name (English)

Takehiko Inoue

Name (Japanese)

成合雄彦

Reading

なりあい たけひこ

Born

January 12, 1967 (age 59)

Zodiac / Chinese zodiac

Capricorn / Goat

Origin

Isa, Kagoshima, Japan

Blood type

B

Active years

1988–present

Occupation

Manga artist / Film director / Screenwriter

High school

Kagoshima Prefectural Oguchi High School

University

Kumamoto University, Faculty of Letters (withdrew)

Debut

1988 — manga debut with "Kaede Purple," selected for the 35th Tezuka Award (published under his real name Takehiko Nariai)

Awards & achievements

• 1988 35th Tezuka Award — Selected Entry (Kaede Purple)
• 1994 40th Shogakukan Manga Award — Boys' Category (SLAM DUNK)
• 2000 4th Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival — Manga Division Grand Prize (Vagabond)
• 2001 5th Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival — Manga Division Excellence Award (Vagabond)
• 2002 Osamu Tezuka Culture Award — Grand Prize (Vagabond)
• 2012 Nara Heijo-kyo 1300 Asia Cosmopolitan Award — Culture Prize

Timeline

1. 1967Born in Oguchi, Kagoshima (now Isa)
2. 1988Manga debut — "Kaede Purple" selected for the 35th Tezuka Award
3. 1989Serialized "Chameleon Jail" in Weekly Shonen Jump
4. 1990Began serializing SLAM DUNK in Weekly Shonen Jump; adopted pen name Takehiko Inoue
5. 1994Won the 40th Shogakukan Manga Award for SLAM DUNK
6. 1996SLAM DUNK serialization concluded (31 volumes total)
7. 1998Began serializing Vagabond in Kodansha's Morning
8. 1999Began serializing Real in Shueisha's Weekly Young Jump
9. 2002Won the Osamu Tezuka Culture Award Grand Prize for Vagabond
10. 2012Received the Asia Cosmopolitan Award for Culture

Spouse

Married (details private)

Children

Has children (details private)

Hobbies

• Basketball
• Calligraphy
• Painting

Specialties

• Manga creation
• Sumi-e (ink wash painting)

Motto

Private

• Official sitehttps://itplanning.co.jp/
• Instagramhttps://www.instagram.com/inouetake88/
• Xhttps://x.com/inouetake
• Wikipedia (Japanese)https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%BA%95%E4%B8%8A%E9%9B%84%E5%BD%A6

Tags

• Manga artist
• SLAM DUNK
• Vagabond
• Real
• Kagoshima
• Shueisha
• Kodansha
• Basketball

Last updated

2026-06-02

Facts are limited to publicly available information up to 2024; non-public or unconfirmed items are omitted. English text is machine-assisted (facts translated by Sonnet, "My Take" written by Opus 4.8). The Japanese page is the source of record.