Early life

Born in Shinj?, Yamagata, Togashi began drawing manga casually in his first to second year of elementary school. In high school, Togashi joined the fine-arts club; he later enrolled at Yamagata University where he studied education in the hope of becoming a teacher. During college he submitted some of his manga work to Weekly Young Jump, published by Shueisha. In 1986, at age 20, he authored a manga titled for which he received the Tezuka Award, the most prestigious award for new comic artists in Japan. Another manga by Togashi titled was an honorable mention in Shueisha's annual Hop Step Award Selection magazine in 1987. After having given up his goal of becoming a teacher, Togashi was contacted by an editor of Weekly Sh?nen Jump during his senior year of college, who asked him to move to Tokyo.

Career

Togashi's earliest published works for Shueisha included , a collection of comedy manga short-stories. Weekly Sh?nen Jump published some of the stories prior to a tank?bon release in 1989. Between 1989 and 1990, Togashi authored , a four-volume romance manga involving the affairs of a normal boy who meets and then gets stuck befriending a beautiful devil girl.

In 1990, Togashi made a name for himself with his next series . Based on his interests in the occult and in horror films, the plot features the character Yusuke Urameshi, a dead boy with an attitude and a high level of spiritual energy who eventually returns to life and spends his time defeating demons in the human world. The manga, which lasted 175 chapter over 19 tank?bon from 1990 to 1994, would go on to sell 44,000,000 copies in Japan, earn Togashi a Shogakukan Manga Award in 1994, and receive a hit anime adaptation. In 1995, he created , a science fiction manga depicting a fantastic universe in which extraterrestrials draw an innocent human into their rather strange intrigues. Comprising three volumes, it was first published in Weekly Sh?nen Jump in 1995 and ran until 1997.

Togashi's next major series , an action-adventure manga, began serialization in 1998. The story revolves around the protagonist Gon Freecss, a bright-eyed, good-hearted boy with talent who wishes to become a "Hunter", a person with fearsome skills bending all his formidable attention towards reaching a specific goal. Hunter × Hunter also performed very well commercial, with the first 20 volumes selling nearly 37,000,000 copies in Japan as of June 2007. In 2008, Togashi tied with One Piece author Eiichiro Oda as the fifth favorite manga artist from a poll posted by the marketing research firm Oricon.

Togashi married Naoko Takeuchi, the mangaka of Sailor Moon, in 1999. The two were introduced at a party hosted by Kazushi Hagiwara in August 1997. The following year, Takeuchi assisted Togashi for short time by adding screentone to his manga Hunter × Hunter. Togashi and Takeuchi were married on January 6, 1999. In attendance for the ceremony were several fellow manga artists and voice actors from both the Sailor Moon and YuYu Hakusho anime series. The couple has two sons and have collaborated on a children's book titled , which Takeuchi wrote and Togashi illustrated. Togashi is good friends with Masashi Kishimoto, the author of Naruto.

Togashi enjoys board-game-style video games and bowling with his family. He also likes watching horror movies, and considers Joyû-rei (Don't Look Up) and Dawn of the Dead his favorites. Togashi cites visual effects designer H. R. Giger as a major influence. Togashi suffered from an immense amount of stress while working on YuYu Hakusho, which caused him inconsistent sleep paterns and chest pain. Togashi has taken numerous breaks in recent years while writing Hunter × Hunter, the first of which was due to illness.

Manga

• Sens?ha Toshishita!! (1986, later featured in Ten de Sh?waru Cupid Volume 4)
• Jura no Miduki (1987, featured in Hop Step Award Selection Volume 1)
• ?kami Nante Kowakunai!! (1989, tank?bon published by Shueisha)
• Buttobi Straight (1987)
• Tonda Birthday Present (1987, published in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• Occult Tanteidan (1988—1989, two parts published in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• Horror Angel (1988, published in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• ?kami Nante Kowakunai!! (1989, published in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• Ten de Sh?waru Cupid (1989—1990, serialized in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• YuYu Hakusho (1990—1994, serialized in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)

• Level E (1995—1997, serialized in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)
• Hunter × Hunter (1998—ongoing, serialized in Weekly Sh?nen Jump)

Other

• Yoshirin de Pon! (1994, YuYu Hakusho d?jinshi distributed at 1994 Summer Comic Market)
• Official Hunter × Hunter Guide (2004, published by Shueisha)
• YuYu Hakusho Who's Who Underworld Character Book (2005, published by Shueisha)
• YuYu Hakusho Illustrations (2005, published by Shueisha)
• Oobo... Nu... Tochiibo... Nu... (2005, published by Kodansha)