Machiko Hasegawa is one of the first female manga artists. She published her first illustrations in magazine Shojo Club at age 14 and created her most famous comic, 'Sazae-san', on 22 April 1946. This was a daily newspaper comic about a housewife and her family. After appearing in a local newspaper, it was taken up by the important Asahi Shimbun paper in 1949.
Hasegawa worked on strip on a daily basis until 21 February 1974. It has become so popular that it was adapted into a 1955 radio series, three live-action TV series, one in 1955, another from 1965 to 1967 and yet another in 2010. It was also turned into an animated TV series (still running since 1969 and currently the longest-running animated TV series in the world, according to the Guinness Book of Records), theatrical plays and songs. Other comics by Machiko Hasegawa are 'Eipuron Obasan' and 'Ijiwaru Basan'. In 1985 a museum in Setagaya, Tokyo, was dedicated to her.
She received the Order of the Precious Crown fourth class (1990) and the People's Honor Award (1992).
