- Keiko Takemiya was born on February 13, 1950 in Tokushima Prefecture, Shikoku, Japan. She is a writer, known for Toward the Terra (2007), Terra e... (1980) and Crusher Joe: The Movie (1983).
- She is responsible for having established a genre of shojo manga that focused on yaoi (love between young men). She began the trend in December 1970, when she published "In the Sunroom", a short story which was possibly the first ever shonen-ai manga (boy-love comic) and featured the first male-male kiss ever in manga.
- She is regarded as "one of the first successful crossover women artists" to create both shojo manga (girls' comics) and shonen manga (boys' comics). Before, shojo manga was written mainly by male manga artists (eg Osamu Tezuka's "Princess Knight" series) and attempts by female manga artists to write manga for girls were relatively new. Fortunately their manga were welcomed by all and their success paved the way for the appearances of many female manga artists.
- She is a member of the Year 24 Flower Group, an exclusive club of female manga artists considered to have revolutionized shojo manga, who were born in the era Showa 24 (1949). Included in this group are Yasuko Aoike, Moto Hagio, Riyoko Ikeda, 'Yumiko Oshima', Toshie Kihara, Ryoko Yamagishi, Minori Kimura, Nanae Sasaya, and Mineko Yamada.
- She serves as dean of the Kyoto Seika University, and since 2000 has taught at that university's Faculty of Manga.
- She shared an apartment with Moto Hagio in Oizumi in Nerima, Tokyo from 1970-1973.
- On her early years: Both the industry and young female manga readers were more conservative than I'd expected. In the competition for popularity, mere "newness" put you at a disadvantage. In order to pitch my work right into the audience's "strike zone," I had no choice but to study the styles of popular artists. I think the resulting method, in terms of being able to capture a reader's feelings and imagination, has served me well to this day.
- My goal was to be unguardedly human first, and a woman second, and to proceed as though sexual discrimination didn't exist even amidst that. At times male society considered this stance impudent. The whole issue couldn't find a place in my heart. I believe it was by expressing myself in manga without getting into a fight that I sent a message of change to a generation of girls who are now grown women.
- When I first became a manga artist I thought the techniques were something that couldn't be taught, but I've come to want to pass them on in some form. Through teaching I hope to construct a theory. I thought I could draw as well when I started, but that's proved impossible - more people and more responsibility on my shoulders with the creation of a department. The truth is, though, that I want to find the time and place to draw again.
- "Drawing" means stripping yourself naked. You have to think how your work is you. If you're just pretending, readers will see through the act one day. What lets you draw with confidence is that Your Work = Your Self. I tell my students, If you want to be drawing manga that isn't just business, get that going.
- Manga has to have something in it that touches the reader's heart. It can't succeed without it, and that's precisely what goes out from artist to reader, that brings them intimately together. If American readers feel that way too, I'd be very glad.
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