Mitei Hattori

Mitei Hattori, who keeps his age and background private, made his serialized debut with Smile! (published in Japan as Smiley). Launched in Nihon Bungeisha’s Weekly Manga Goraku in November 2021, it follows a grieving writer who, at his lowest point, joins a religious group whose doctrine holds that smiling brings happiness. Though the premise centers on faith, Hattori sees the series as a human drama rather than a religious manga. It concluded in Japan in 11 volumes, and a live-action adaptation is in development.

That focus on people shapes how he draws. Hattori works with film storyboards in mind, stripping back dialogue so that expressions and reactions carry the story from panel to panel. He has pointed to television dramas such as Hanzawa Naoki and Shitamachi Rocket, known for close-ups that let faces tell the story, as a possible influence, and he suspects his eye for faces comes from years of anxiously reading other people’s moods.