Yukio Sawada

Yukio Sawada (Japanese: 沢田 ユキオ; real name 沢田 幸男) (born March 12, 1953 in the, , Japan) is a manga artist famously known for being Super Mario-kun 's (and the other related manga) author. He appears in some panels of his manga as the narrator or even a character of the story, mostly in special chapters about his experience as the "Mario mangaka", in which he is usually called「作者」(sakusha, "the author").

After studying engineering at Doshisha University and graduating, Sawada started his career in manga with one-shot manga on . His first Super Mario manga is a Super Mario Bros. one-shot in the February 1986 issue of a publication aimed at third-grade elementary students. This one-shot was republished in Volume 40 of Super Mario-kun. Nintendo then gave Wanpaku Comic the rights for a Super Mario manga serialization, with Sawada as the author and artist: Super Mario Bros. 2. This was based on Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels and ran monthly until 1988. In December 1988, Sawada started a new series called Super Mario Bros. 3 but it ran for only two issues as the publication shut down in January 1989. In 1990, the Super Mario manga rights were passed to, under the name Super Mario-kun, written and drawn by Sawada.

Sawada is the father of two children and author of 58 Super Mario-kun volumes as well as three spin-offs based on the Wario franchise, Yoshi's New Island and Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. He has also designed an Event Course in Super Mario Maker.

Trivia

 * When writing a story for Super Mario-kun, Sawada usually plays the game on which the story is based and gets help from his children in difficult levels.
 * Sawada's favorite character is Yoshi.