Momoko Sakura
Momoko Sakura, born Miki Miura on May 8, 1965 in Shimizu-ku, Shizuoka, Japan, was a Japanese manga artist who used the pen name Momoko Sakura. She started drawing professionally in 1984 and is best known for Chibi Maruko-chan, a long-running manga based on her own childhood in 1970s suburban Japan. The manga appeared in the magazine Ribon from 1986 to 1996 and continued in serialization until 2022. An anime adaptation aired from 1990 to 1992, with a second series starting in 1995 and continuing to this day.
She created the surreal fantasy series Coji-Coji, which ran from 1997 to 1999. Sakura also worked on video games, including Sakura Momoko Gekijō Coji-Coji for Dreamcast and Sakura Momoko no Ukiuki Carnival for Game Boy Advance, with collaborators. In 2005 she designed characters for the Xbox 360 game Every Party.
Her work often includes musical influences, with nods to Yellow Magic Orchestra and Shibuya-kei in Coji-Coji. She kept her private life largely private.
Momoko Sakura died of breast cancer on August 15, 2018, at age 53. Before her death, she wrote lyrics for musician Kazuyoshi Saito, which were used in his 2019 song Itsumo no Fūkei, the ending theme of the Chibi Maruko-chan anime. She was survived by her second husband. In 1989 she won the Kodansha Manga Award in the Shōjo category for Chibi Maruko-chan.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 11:48 (CET).