Jiro Taniguchi was born 1947 in Tottori, Japan. He trained in the 60's and debuted in 1971 in 'Young Comic'. During the 70's he worked with author Natsuo Sekikawa before launching into their massive work 'The times of Botchan' in the 80's. The 90's saw many solo works including the prize winning 'A Distant Neighborhood'. The new millenium saw Taniguchi's epic adaptation of Baku Yumemakura's novel 'The Summit of the Gods' into a 1500 page manga. He continues to live and work in Japan. [b]Natsuo Sekikawa[/b] was born in November, 1949. Mostly an historian and essayist he collaborated with [b]Jiro Taniguchi[/b] from 1976 - 79 writing hard boiled stories like [i]Lindo 3[/i]. They followed this up in the 1980's with the award winning series [i]Botchan No Jidai[/i]. [b]Jiro Taniguchi[/b] was born in Tottori, Japan in 1947.