Nanashi

"Nanashi" (ナナシ) is the pen name of the author and artist of Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro. In Japanese, the name means "seven-four"; online the author is also known as "774". Every detail regarding Nanashi, however, is unknown to the public, including their gender or - for some time - if they were a single person or rather a group of artists, albeit it was later revealed through Q&A and interviews that they are one individual.

In Nanashi's career, they have published multiple works of hentai manga, whether under the doujin circle "774 House" (774 ハウス) or on and other reputable sites, as well as more safe for work sites like webcomics with the original Nagatoro stories, before beginning to serialize the Nagatoro manga for.

In the past, instead of ナナシ, Nanashi used the pseudonym characters na nashi (ななし), a phrase that literally means "no name" in Japanese. It was used together with "774", indicating a pun on "seven" (七) and "four" (四).

Biography
The individual known as "Nanashi" was born in the central-eastern area of Japan. Their parents forbid them from reading manga as a kid, prompting the future author to hide it from them. Growing up they were influenced especially by 's "" due to it's violent, erotic and comedy-drama elements. Despite manga always being among their hobbies - to the point of drawing some while in high school - they never aimed to be a mangaka and after graduating started to work for a game company. In 2012 they left the company and began to draw erotic - which they started to publish in 2010 - for over five years under the doujin circle "774 House" while also starting to publish webcomics on, one of which being Nagatoro prototype, which was later serialized by  from November 1, 2017, becoming a hit and being later adapted into an anime series.

On October 3, 2018, Nanashi contributed in designing and creating Yomi Magaji, the official of .

In July 2020, Nanashi worked on a crossover one-shot between Nagatoro and Azu's "", which was published on Magazine Pocket, July 27th 2020 issue of. Also, Yoshiaki Sukeno's "My Senpai is After My Life" made several references to Nanashi's fictional manga "School Rumble Shining" (first appeared in Chapter 4) eventually leading the two authors to agree that their manga's are set in the same universe.

Nanashi also worked actively as a character designer for several videogames, especially and.

Style
Nanashi's self-portrait is usually that of a stylized Nagatoro or, alternatively, a fish. They usually tend to write about everyday events, slice-of-life or school life with an emphasis on people's feelings, world-views and sexual/romantic tension. However they tend to permeate it with humor and jokes, to make it entertaining and accessible. Their main focus is often a girl with a youthful appearance - involved in with a submissive male protagonist, focusing the attention on how they go from devilish sadism to tender sweetness.

They don't usually take the side of any of the two part, shifting between them as they draw. It's almost always the male protagonist who's thoughts are known by the reader, while the heroine is always very expressive and transmits her feelings with glances, smiles, smirks and expressions. Despite for Nagatoro, Nanashi integrates social problems into the story - like bullying - they tend to show both parts of the phenomenon, as well as the reason that could have led a person to involuntarily push it: even if Senpai was bullied by Nagatoro and friends from the beginning, the author later progressively shows their more human sides, dreams and insecurities, revealing who they really are behind the image the boy had of them and leading the characters to eventually form a weird friendship-like relationship.

Nanashi considers their characters as children and, as the plot continues, they felt the characters were maturing and declared to be happy about it as it allowed them to do more. When the manga began serialization, Nanashi had in mind a general idea on how the story would end.

First doujins (2010)
The author's first doujins were published online in early 2010, the very first being "The Class Rep Is Buck Naked" (委員長はすっぽんぽん), the story of class representative Kanae Kinoshita, who was forced to strip in front of all her classmates by bandits who attacked her school, followed by "Miko Breast Offering" (奉乳祭) about two sisters, Kanae and Sanae Yaeda, shrine maiden's who were chosen for a brutal ceremony regarding their breasts.

Nagatoro-san (2011-2015)
The prototype for the Nagatoro series, published between August 15, 2011 and December 25, 2015 on Pixiv with a total of five issues.

Lady Yupiel's Servant (2012-2013)
Nanashi's first official work, "Lady Yupiel's Servant" (ユピエル様の下僕), is a one-shot launched originally in 2012 at the. It's one of the authors most well known work's as well as one of their favorites, they made a sequel of it the following year, "Everyday Life with Lady Yupiel" (ユピエル様との日常) (hoping to turn it in a continuous series) and made reference of it in Chapter 5 of the Nagatoro series.

It's an erotic/supernatural manga about an ordinary salaryman that, while visiting for work an old mansion in London, witness's a 300 year old vampire, Lady Yupiel, killing two men. She hunts him down to drink him but ends up taking his virginity away in a night of passion and bites him, making him an immortal at her service. Surprisingly, however she lets the man retain his free will and - although being very violent in the bedroom - she turns out to be sweet and caring towards him, leading them to begin an odd, yet romantic relationship.

Semen Tank: Mizuho Saito (2012)
July 24, 2012 Nanashi published "Semen Tank: Mizuho Saito" (ザーメン便女 斉藤瑞穂) an erotic one-shot about a responsible and shy girl, Mizuho Saito, who was forced to take part to a porn video after her father was kidnapped, however she ended up enjoying it and became an adult movie star.

Naked Princess Honoka (2012-2016)
Nanashi's first series, the hightly controversial "Naked Princess Honoka" (裸姫穂乃火) only had 3 chapters published from December 31, 2012 to December 31, 2016 and was one of the authors highly known work's on the web. The story revolves around the eponymous Honoka, an Esper princess with pyrokinetic powers (incinerating her clothes every time she uses them, hence the nickname) who is part of an organization charged with fighting the threat of monstrous creatures known as beast men. It became infamous due to detailed zoophile scenes. Later for Nagatoro, the author would occasionally have Nagatoro wear Honoka's signature beret, and would re-use the design of a supporting heroine named Kazane for Orihara.

Suzuka-sama's Servant (2013)
August 11, 2013, Nanashi published a new hentai/supernatural doujinshi, "Suzuka-sama's Servant" (鈴香様の下僕). Despite the similar title, the work is much more violent and explicit than Lady Yupiel and the titular heroine is far crueler toward the male protagonist. Suzuhara is a powerful man-eating 1300 year old demon that resembles a child, after defeating Yoshiaki Endou, the descendent of a demon slayer family, she humiliates him, forces him to break his chastity vow, eventually mindbreaking him into admitting that he's a lolicon and becomes her sex slave.

Later doujins (2013-2015)
October 31, 2013 Nanashi published online "Together with My Sisters" (お姉ちゃんといっしょ) another extreme doujinshi about a boy who gets punished with sadomasochism by his two sisters for having been found peeking on them. In 2014 they published various hentai parodies on "" and three other doujins on exhibitionism: "Hina and Sumire's hentai boobs adventure diary" (ヒナとスミレの変態おっぱい冒険日記), "Misaki Ogawa's First Adventure" (小川みさき 初めての冒険) and "My adventure diary" (私の冒険日記), the design of the latter's protagonist being later reused in Nagatoro for both Ai Mahiro and the Public Morals Committee Chief. In early 2015 Nanashi published online the second chapter of the Misaki Ogawa series, "Holstein Misaki's Big Adventure" (ホルスタインみさきの大冒険).

Naruto doujins (2016)
After "" which made canon the couple between and  (commonly referred to as "NaruHina", a portmanteau between their names), one of Nanashi's favourite, they released two doujins about their married life and first night as husband and wife: "Warm Uzumaki" (あったかうずまき) and "Warm Uzumaki 2" (あったかうずまき 2), as well as several illustrations of the couple on Pixiv.

This was a turning point for Nanashi's style which began to be more romanticized and progressively diminished the violent and extreme content for which Nanashi was previously known for, making their stories more wholesome, lighter, softer, vanilla and kind-hearted, thus leading many fans to jokingly say that "NaruHina saved Nanashi".

Later that same year, Nanashi took part in two collections of doujins "Towako" (永遠娘) and "Towako 2" (永遠娘 2) that, aside from the loli contents and sexual themes, were both more feeling-oriented, and kind. Also, Lady Yupiel is the only previous work Nanashi published in it due to being far less cruel than in their other doujins.

Illya and Kuro (2017-2019)
Early 2017, Nanashi published an untitled erotic parody of "" simply called "C91 venue limited book" (C91会場限定本), followed two years later, mid 2019, by a sequel: "Illya and Kuro, the Kinky Girls having Public Sex at their School!" (イリヤとクロのド変態 校内露出セックス!!) despite the heavily erotic and explicit contents, both of the stories revolve around the girls feelings and their exhibitionism tendencies without containing violent depictions.

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro (2017-present)
Nanashi's first continuous series, Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro presented the author internationally and became arguably their most famous work.

A Tale of Being Eaten by a Man-Eating Youkai (2019)
An action/love comedy comic Nanashi published on Pixiv November 3, 2019, "A Tale of Being Eaten by a Man-Eating Youkai" (人喰いの妖怪に喰われる話) shows the author's definitive change of tone. The piece contains a sex scene which isn't shown directly with non explicit nudity. The story is about an exorcist who's home town was destroyed by and, in order to get revenge, made a contract with the strongest of them all - known as the Man-Eater - who agrees to fight at his side in exchange for the boy agreeing to be eaten after the last of his enemies were killed. During their journey the boy and the Man-Eater get closer to the point of taking care of each other and considering themselves as best friends. After one year they defeat the last enemy youkai and the boy readies himself to be eaten saying, "He wouldn't mind being devoured by his friend" however, much to his astonishment, Man-Eater assumed a human form revealing to be female and that "eating" was always referred to the sexual way. After sleeping together, due to their strong friendship it got awkward, however they later ventured on another journey starting to develop even stronger feelings for one another.

Trivia

 * Nanashi prefers to work and draw at family restaurants rather than at their office or at home.
 * They are a huge fan of the  series.
 * The mangaka usually plays  after finishing their daily manga panels.
 * They suffer from a weak gastrointestinal tract.