Hideo Azuma was born on February 6, 1950, in Hokkaido. He moved to Tokyo, where he served as an assistant to Rentaro Itai and made his manga debut in 1969. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, he produced a large body of work across many genres, including the comedies FUTARI TO GONIN (Two People and Five) and YAKEKUSO TENSHI (Desperate Angel), as well as the Seiun (Japanese Hugo) Award-winning science fiction title FUJOURI NIKKI (Absurd Diary). He is also known as the father of Lolicon manga. However, the pressures took their toll, and in 1989, he fled his responsibilities and became homeless. Following this experience and his eventual return to normal life, he repeated the cycle in 1992, this time working as a gas pipe layer in another town. Later, in 1998, his alcoholism became so severe that he was forced into rehab. This book expresses those three periods of his life, told not in a deep or depressed manner, but, befitting his nature, with buoyant and cheerful cartoon art, making it a welcome addition to the "personal manga" genre. In 2005, SHISSOU NIKKI (Disappearance Diary) received the Grand Prize from the Manga Division of the 9th Japan Media Arts Festival and the Excellence Prize at the 34th Japan Cartoonists Association Awards.