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Today's Cerberus Creator Reveals Source of Pen Name

Today's Cerberus manga creator Ato Sakurai revealed in now deleted tweets that she previously worked under a more gender-ambiguous pen name, but it wasn't her own decision. Sakurai wrote on Twitter on Sunday that when she debuted as a manga artist, her editor at the time told her use a gender neutral pen name. She said she'll never forget the reason he told her to change her name.

"It's off-putting for a woman to draw boys' manga, don't you think?"

According to Sakurai, this incident took place at her previous publisher. She didn't want to seem picky about her name and so she changed it.

Internet users are speculating that Sakurai's previous work for Shogakukan Weekly Shōnen Sunday magazine is the topic of the tweets. Sakurai previously published works under the name Takako Sakurai in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday Super magazine from 2002 to 2003, but began working under the name Ato Sakurai for works published in Weekly Shōnen Sunday beginning in 2004. She previously worked as an assistant under The Law of Ueki manga creator Tsubasa Fukuchi.

Ato Sakurai's Today's Cerberus (Kyō no Kerberos) manga ended its run in Square Enix's Monthly Shonen Gangan magazine May 11. Yen Press began releasing the volumes digitally in July 2015, and began simultaneous publication in October 2015. The company released the first volume in print in 2016.

[Via Yara-on!]