Rica Takashima

Using pop, colorful, fun and comic twist expression, she challenges viewers to rethink their pre-existing social values and customs such as gender, age and race, and to feel more empathy towards different elements in the society.

In 1995, Rica started drawing semi-autobiographical Manga portraying the everyday lives of lesbians, in Japan’s premier lesbian magazine at that time. She struggled with her sexuality since her young age, but there were no movies and novels with themed positive lesbian stories even in 1980s. Her questions towards traditional Japanese patriarchal family values and discrimination against LGBT motivated her to start to draw conceptual Manga to public. Her project Manga book was published in 2003 and 2012, in English and Japanese, and Italian version in 2011. After she immigrated to the US with her family in 2008, she collaborates her work with Pride March, NewFEST LGBT film festival, and other diverse organizations, and attends as a panelist at New York ComiCon, Bronx Heroes ComiCon, and other conventions to outreach to LGBT youth and their families. Not only she works on Manga books but also works on large-scale installation that requires people participation on the street as well.
​Rica was born and raised in Tokyo, Japan. Moved to NYC in 2008.