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 are 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 many hentai manga, whether under the doujin circle "774 House" (774 ハウス) or on and elsewhere, as well as more work-safe webcomics like the original Nagatoro stories,  before beginning to serialize the Nagatoro manga for.

In the past, instead of ナナシ, Nanashi used the homophonic characters na nashi (ななし), a phrase that literally means "no name" in Japanese. But 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 to read manga as a kid, prompting the future author to hid it from them. Growing up they were influenced expecially by 's "" due to it's violent, erotic and comedy-drama sides. Despite manga always been 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 leave the company and started to draw erotic - which 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, who was later serialized by  from November 1, 2017, becoming an 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 .

Style
Nanashi's self-portrait is usually that of a stylized Nagatoro or, alternatively, a fish. They 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, but tends to permeate it with humor and jokes, to make it entertaining and accessible. Their main focus are ofter dominant - or 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 didn't usually took the side of any of the two part, shifting between them as they draw. It's almost always the male protagonist whose thoughts are known by the reader, while the heroine is always very expressive and trasmit her feelings with glances, smiles, smirk and expressions. Despite for Nagatoro Nanashi integrate social problems into the story - like bullism - they tend to show both parts of the phenomenon, as well as the reason that could led a person to involuntarily push it: even if Senpai was bullied by Nagatoro and friends at the beginning, the author later progressively shows their human sides, dreams and insecurities, revealing who they really are behind the image the boy had of them, leading to eventually began a weird friendship-like relationship.

They considers their characters as children and, as the plot continued, 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
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 rep Kanae Kinoshita, who was forced to strip in front of all her classmates by the bandits who attacked her school, followed by "Miko Breast Offering" (奉乳祭) about two sisters, Kanae and Sanae Yaeda, shrine maiden 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.

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 most known work as well as one of their favourite, 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 a mansion in London, witness a 300 years old vampire, Lady Yupiel, killing two men. She hunt him down to drink him but end up taking his verginity away in a night of passion and bite him, making him an immortal at her service. Surprisingly, however she let the man his free will and - altough being very violent in bedroom - she turned out to be sweet and caring toward him, leading them to began an odd romantic relationship.

Semen Tank: Mizuho Saito (2012)
In Jul 24, 2012 Nanashi published a "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 from some gangsters who kidnapped her father, however she end up enjoying it and becoming and adult movie star..

Naked Princess Honoka (2012-2016)
Nanashi's first series, the hightly controversial "Naked Princess Honoka" (裸姫穂乃火) it only had 3 chapters published from December 31, 2012 to December 31, 2016 and was one of the author most known work on the web. The story revolves around the eponymous Honoka, an Esper princess with pyrokinetic powers (incinerating her clothes every time she uses her powers, 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.

Suzuka-sama's Servant (2013)
On August 11, 2013, the author 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 years old demon that looks lika a child, after defeating Yoshiaki Endou, the descendent of a demons slayers family, she humiliate him, circumcised him and forced him to break his chastity vow, eventually mindbreaking him into admit that he's a lolicon and becoming her sex slave.

Later doujins (2013-2015)
On 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 got punished with sadomasochism by his two sisters for having been found peeking on them. In 2014 they published various hentai parody on "" and three doujins on exibitionism: "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, one of Nanashi's favourite, they realized 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 illustration of the couple on Pixiv.

This was a turning point for the author's style who then began to be more romantic-oriented and progressively lose all the violent and extreme contents for which them were previously known, making their stories much wholesome, vanilla and kind-hearted, leading many fan to jokingly say that "NaruHina saved Nanashi".

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

Don't Toy With Me, Miss Nagatoro (2017-present)
Nanashi's first long, 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
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: it contain a sex scene but isn't shown directly and the nudity is completely hidden. The story is about an exorcist boy whose home town was destroyed by and, in order to get revenge on them, made a contract with the strongest of them all - known as the Man-Eater - who accept to fight at his side in exchange of the boy accepting to be eaten after the last of their enemy was killed. During their journey the boy and the Man-Eater get closer to the point to often taking care to each other and consider themselves as each other's best friend. After one year they defeated the last enemy youkai and the boy get ready to be eaten saying he wouldn't mind be devoured by his friend however, much to his astonishment, Man-Eather assumed a human form revealing to be female and that "eating" have always referred to the sexual way. After sleeping together, due to their strong friendship it got a little awkward, however they later ventured on another journey starting to develop even stronger feelings for one another.

Trivia

 * Nanashi prefer to work and draw at family restaurants rather than at their office or at home.