| Haruka Takachiho 高千穂 遙 | |
| Birth Name: | Kimiyoshi Takekawa |
| Birth Date: | 7 November 1951 |
| Birth Place: | Nagoya, Japan |
| Alma Mater: | Hosei University |
| Notable Works: | Crusher Joe, Dirty Pair, Dirty Pair Flash |
| Occupation: | Science fiction author |
| Awards: | Best Japanese Short Story at the 1980 Seiun Awards for Daatipea no Dai Boken Best Japanese Novel at the 1986 Seiun Awards for Dirty Pair no Dai Gyakuten |
(born November 7, 1951, as in Nagoya, Japan) is a Japanese science fiction author and founder of Studio Nue. Takachiho is best known as the creator of Crusher Joe, Dirty Pair and Dirty Pair Flash. Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies called him one of Japan's leading pulp novelists[1]
Takachiho established the anime production house Studio Nue in 1972, working as an anime producer and scenario writer, while still a student at Hosei University. He graduated three years later, in 1975, in social science. In 1977 Takachiho made his authorial debut with his novel "Crusher Joe: Rentai Wakusei Pizan no Kiki" ("Crusher Joe: Crisis on Solidarity Planet Pizan"). Two of Takachiho's stories have won Seiun Awards, "Daatipea no Dai Boken" ("Great Adventure of The Dirty Pair") for Best Japanese Short Story in 1980, and "Dirty Pair no Dai Gyakuten" ("The Dirty Pair Strike Again") for Best Japanese Novel in 1986.[2] He held the title of Executive Secretary of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan (SFWJ) until the end of 1997.
See main article: Dirty Pair.
The inspiration for Dirty Pair novels was a visit to Japan by the British Australian SF author A. Bertram Chandler, in August 1977. On his itinerary was a stop at the young Studio Nue, which Takachiho co-founded. As something to entertain their guest, two of the staffers there, Yuri Tanaka and Keiko Otoguro, hit upon the idea with Takachiho of taking Chandler to a tournament of the All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling organization, which was a member of the World Women's Wrestling Association (WWWA). The card included the highly-popular wrestling (and singing) team, the Beauty Pair. Something that passed among the foursome during that match led Chandler to remark to Takachiho something to the effect that "the two women in the ring may be the Beauty Pair, but those two with you ought to be called 'the Dirty Pair'."[3]
This became the germ of an idea for a novella Takachiho decided to write, transplanting the rough-housing of pro-wrestling to the realm of space-opera mystery stories, with which he already had experience in his already successful Crusher Joe series. The team code-name "Lovely Angels" is also a play on the names of certain women's teams of the time, such as the Queen Angels.