Hiro Fujiwara

Hiro Fujiwara was born on December 23, 1981, in Hyōgo Prefecture. She also has two older brothers and two cats, but is currently living alone. She normally speaks standard Japanese, but when she relaxes or lets her guard down, she speaks in a Kansai accent, in which she can hardly have control. She also states that currently, she listens to songs by Akeboshi and Rie fu, although her all-time favourite singer is Hikaru Utada. She uses background music while doing work. She also says that being a manga artist was a dream profession when she was young. During high school, she concentrated in playing double bass. While studying literature at university, she took a gap year of 4 years to choose what she wanted to be. She started to become a manga artist after she graduated. She mentions that during her university days, she became an assistant for a manga artist and that the experience had helped her with her work now. The author and Yuki Fujitsuka both won the same category in the 31st Hakusensha Athena Newcomers' Awards in year 2006. She also mentioned that all the characters in Kaichō wa Maid-sama! are easy to draw with the exception of Usui. She has also written poems. ==Career==

Hiro Fujiwara made her debut by winning the Best Rookie award in the 144th LaLa Mangaka Scout Course for her work . However, this was won under her name, Hiro Izumi and it went on to be published in the April 2005 issue of LaLa DX. She has submitted a few works to Hakusensha's other contest besides the manga artist's other attempts at the LMS and LMG. Those works are, , , Fly and another untitled work that was going to be sent in to year 2002's LaLa Mangaka Scout Course. Diary. was sent into the 40th Big Challenge Awards but was not short-listed. She was placed 19th for Kakera, Hitotsu that was sent-in to the Hana to Yume Mangaka Course. The third work, Fly was submitted to the 27th Hakusensha Athena Newcomers' Awards and was mentioned in the 2nd issue of Hana to Yume as well as the February issue of LaLa. Hiro Fujiwara. won the 36th LaLa Manga Grand Prix's Fresh Debut Award and was published in the November issue of LaLa DX in year 2004. In the same month, she also had another work titled serialized in LaLa Special. In 2005, she started the year by serializing in the March issue of LaLa DX. Three months later, she went on to publish another one-shot, and made her debut in LaLa DXs sister magazine, LaLa. In the November issue of LaLa DX, she published her last work of the year, which was also later compiled together into Kaichō wa Maid-sama!s volume one. In 2006, she made her last one-shot titled which was published in the February issue of LaLa. She inspired in some things of Gakuen Alice of Tachibana Higuchi for do her manga, where discovered the Hakusensha editorial. However, this one-shot's popularity had made the one-shot span into a manga series which has been serialized in LaLa. It has 18 volumes published in Japan. Besides authoring the manga, Fujiwara has also illustrated the furoku or freebies given out by the magazine as well as writing the scripts for the drama CDs. According to an entry at her blog, she said that this was her first overseas signing event. In 2012, Fujiwara held a small charity auction featuring characters from her manga Kaichō wa Maid-sama!. She announced on her blog that the money would aid Tohoku's earthquake reconstruction from 2011. It was the first time she offered a signed and colored illustration. ==Works==

One-shots • Hanjuku Wolf • Kimi no Hidamari • Shōnen Scramble • Tōmei na Sekai • Kono Mama Ja Dame Mitai Desu I Can't Stay Like This • Kaichō wa Maid-sama! ==Awards==

• Best Rookie – 144th LaLa Manga Scout Course (LMS) for her work, Kaeri Michi, Yuki no Netsu • Fresh Debut – 36th LaLa Manga Grand Prix (LMG) for her work, Akai Yume • Outstanding Debut – 31st Hakusensha Athena Newcomers' Awards for her first series, Kaichō wa Maid-sama! ==References==