In 1971 Nakai was transferred to Osaka Municipal Suminoe Elementary, where Shimada was attending the 4th Grade. They had different classes but lived in the same apartment building and got to know each other while riding the bus to school. One day in the 5th Grade when Nakai went to play at Shimada's house, Shimada showed him his pictures of Kinnikuman. When they both graduated to Osaka Municipal Nanryo Middle School, they began collaborating on manga ideas. Their first was an action manga called '
, but they then experimented with other genres, such as baseball, karate, and romance. At first they drew strictly on notebook paper, but in the 8th Grade they drew on art paper and won the Kintetsu Manga Award. At that time they went by the pen name ', a fusion of their respective pen names at the time. After they completed Hatsushiba High School and graduated to college, they continued to submit works, hoping to become manga creators. From that point on, Shimada and Nakai began to share the story and art respectively. When they were 16, they submitted their wrestling manga '
to the Akatsuka Award and ' to the
Tezuka Award. Though neither won, they were noticed by an editor at
Shueisha and offered to do a
one shot. In 1978,
Kinnikuman almost won the 9th Akatsuka Award and then debuted in the 1979 #2 (December 1978) issue of
Weekly Shōnen Jump. Although the editorial staff viewed it as a childish work that was popular, then editor-in-chief
Shigeo Nishimura saw through this and headed for Osaka in order to persuade their parents into letting them become professional manga creators. At the time, both young men were already looking for jobs, but Nishimura promised to take care of them and even got them an apartment in
Tokyo. In May 1979,
Kinnikuman began serialization. ==Career==