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 pseudonym means "seven-four"; online the author is also known as "774". Every detail regarding Nanashi's identity is unknown to the public; for many years this included details such as the gender or if they were a single person rather than a group of artists. However, it was progressively revealed - through Q&A and interviews - that the mangaka was one individual while, in 2021, they were finally confirmed to be male.

In Nanashi's career, he has 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 1983 in the, on the largest and most populous island of Japan,. His parents forbade him from reading manga as a kid, prompting the future author to hide it from them. In middle school, he greatly enjoyed "'" and, growing up, was influenced especially by 's "'" due to it's violent, erotic, and comedy-drama elements, and by for his work on the. Albeit, as a student, he also enjoyed 's "" very much. Despite manga always being among his hobbies - to the point of drawing some while in high school - he never aimed to be a mangaka and, after graduating, he moved to the in order to start working for a game company. However, in 2012, he left the company and began to draw erotic - which he 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 the 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. He usually tends 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, he tends to permeate it with humor and jokes to make it entertaining and accessible. His 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.

He doesn't usually take the side of any of the two parts, shifting between them as he draws. 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. He tends 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 mangaka 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 friendship.

Nanashi considers his characters as children and, as the plot continues, he felt the characters were maturing and declared to be happy about it, as it allowed him 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. It was followed by "Miko Breast Offering" (奉乳祭), about two sisters, Kanae and Sanae Yaeda, who were shrine maiden's 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 author's most well known works as well as one of his favorites. He 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 into 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 an old mansion in London for work, witness's a 300 year old Polish 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)
On 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 in 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 highly 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 mangaka 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. Suzuka 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 becoming 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, he published various hentai parodies of "" 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). Then, over the following years, Nanashi made several other single-panel illustrations, as well as an 8 bit video game-styled short animation of the main heroine, whose likeness were later used for Shikki.

Naruto doujins (2016)
After "", which made canon the romantic pairing between and  (commonly referred to as "NaruHina", a portmanteau between their names), one of Nanashi's favourites, he 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 his 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 his other doujins.

Illya and Kuro & Class Rep remake (2017)
In early 2017, Nanashi published an untitled erotic parody of "" simply called "C91 venue limited book" (C91会場限定本), while on August 13, 2017, he made a more light hearted remake of his first doujin: "The Class Rep Is Buck Naked", focusing more on Kanae's feelings, her relationship with fellow classmates and how exposing herself helped her overcoming her ansieties, rather than on her humiliation at the hand of the bandits.

Later that year, Nanashi made a sequel of C91: "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 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 his most famous work.

Man-Eating Youkai (2019-2022)
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 and 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 are 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 by "eating", she always meant 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.

Two years later, on November 5, 2021, he gave the story a four-panel sequel about the pair's daily life as monster-hunters and their growing relationship as a loving couple, despite their respectives strong personalities often put them at odds; while on September 6, 2022, the author published a twelve-page length third sequel of the story showing the duo living together and further bonding as Man-Eater discloses her feelings toward the hardship of being feared by all humanity before meeting the male protagonist. Oddly enough, while the first two chapters were seemingly set in a fantasy alike world, the third confirms the setting is actually modern day, as the protagonists watch  on a flat screen TV.

Trivia

 * Nanashi prefers to work and draw at family restaurants rather than at his office or at home.
 * He's a huge fan of the ' series, as well as ', but his favourite video game ever is the  series.
 * The mangaka usually plays  after finishing his daily manga panels.
 * He suffers from a weak gastrointestinal tract.
 * Nanashi's favourite foods are and, while his favourite color is.
 * Having a passion for trains and living in the, Nanashi has named almost all of Nagatoro's female characters to date after : , , , , , and , while most the male characters are all named after : , , , and.
 * Said "habit" has only two exceptions: a male character named after a Kanagawa station and a female character named after a Tokyo one.
 * He doesn't have a TV.
 * Nanashi doesn't drive a car nor have a driving licence.