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Terence O'Neill

Terence Marne O'Neill, Baron O'Neill of the Maine, PC (NI) (10 September 1914 – 12 June 1990), was the fourth prime minister of Northern Ireland and leader (1963–1969) of the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP). A moderate unionist, who sought to reconcile the sectarian divisions in Northern Ireland society, he was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for the Bannside constituency from 1946 until his resignation in January 1970; his successor in the House of Commons of Northern Ireland after a by-election was Ian Paisley, while control of the UUP also passed to more hard-line elements.

Background

Terence O'Neill was born on 10 September 1914 at 29 Ennismore Gardens, Hyde Park, London to The Hon, Arthur O'Neill and his wife Lady Annabel Hungerford Crewe-Milnes.

O'Neill grew up in London and was educated at West Downs School, Winchester and Eton College. He spent summer holidays in Ulster. Following school he spent a year in France and Germany and then worked in the City of London and Australia. In May 1940 he received a commission at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, and went on to serve in the 6th Guards Tank Brigade during the Second World War, in which both of his brothers died. Like many other unionist politicians, the rank he held during the war followed him into his political career, hence "Captain" Terence O'Neill.

On 4 February 1944 he married Katharine Jean, the daughter of William Ingham Whitaker, of Pylewell Park, Lymington, Hampshire. They had one son, Patrick (born 1945), and one daughter, Anne (born 1947). His great-nephew is popular British record-producer and DJ, Fred Again.

Like all Prime Ministers of Northern Ireland, he was a member of the Orange Order.

Politics
At the end of 1945, O'Neill and his family went to live in Northern Ireland in a converted Regency rectory near Ahoghill, County Antrim. In a by-election in 1946, he was elected as the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) MP for the Bannside constituency in the Parliament of Northern Ireland, which sat at Parliament Buildings at Stormont. O'Neill served in a series of junior positions. He was Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health and Local Government from February 1948 until November 1953, when he was appointed Chairman of Ways and Means and Deputy Speaker of the House of Commons of Northern Ireland. In 1953 he served as High Sheriff of Antrim. He was elevated to Cabinet level in the Government of Northern Ireland in April 1956 when he was made Minister of Home Affairs and sworn into the Privy Council of Northern Ireland. Six months later he was also appointed as Minister of Finance, a senior portfolio that he administered alongside Home Affairs until he divested the latter to focus on Finance. He remained Minister of Finance until his appointment as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland in 1963.

Prime Minister
In 1963, O'Neill succeeded Basil Brooke, 1st Viscount Brookeborough as Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and Leader of the Ulster Unionist Party. He introduced new policies that would have been unthinkable with Lord Brookeborough as Prime Minister. He aimed to end sectarianism and to bring Catholics and Protestants into working relationships. A visit to a convent proved controversial among many Protestants. He also had aspirations in the industrial sector, seeking improved relations with the trade union movement and attracting new investment from abroad to replace failing industry in Northern Ireland. O'Neill seemed to strongly believe in industrialisation and modernisation. However it is clear that O'Neill was in some ways trying to prevent the Northern Ireland Labour Party (NILP) from gaining ground. The arrival of Harold Wilson's Labour government in Downing Street meant the NILP had a significant ally there. Wilson was not a committed UUP supporter, so that O'Neill was the first Prime Minister of Northern Ireland who could not rely on the support of the UK Government.

As O'Neill promoted industrialisation and modernisation, Taoiseach Seán Lemass was doing similar things in the Republic of Ireland, thus leading to the first real rapprochement between the two jurisdictions since partition. In January 1965, O'Neill invited the Taoiseach for talks in Belfast. O'Neill met with strong opposition from his own party, having informed very few of the visit, and from Ian Paisley, who rejected any dealings with the Republic. Paisley and his followers threw snowballs at Lemass' car during the visit. In February, O'Neill visited Lemass in Dublin. Opposition to O'Neill's reforms was so strong that in 1967 George Forrest – the MP for Mid Ulster, who supported the Prime Minister – was pulled off the platform at the Twelfth of July celebrations in Coagh, County Tyrone, and kicked unconscious by fellow members of the Orange Order.

In December 1967, Lemass' successor Jack Lynch travelled to Stormont for his first meeting with O'Neill. On 8 January 1968, they met again in Dublin. On 19 January 1968, O'Neill made a speech marking five years in office to members of the Irish Association, calling for "a new endeavour by organisations in Northern Ireland to cross denominational barriers and advance the cause of better community relations". On 20 May 1968, O'Neill was pelted with eggs, flour and stones by members of the Woodvale Unionist Association who disapproved of his policies.

In 1968, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) began street demonstrations. The march across Derry on 5 October 1968, banned by William Craig the Minister of Home Affairs, was met with violence from the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) who used batons on protesters, among whom were prominent politicians. The O'Neill government was unable to deal with the disturbances, so Harold Wilson summoned O'Neill to Downing Street. The Stormont cabinet minutes from 14 October show O'Neill recalling his time in Britain. He stated that Wilson had threatened to take over if O'Neill could not manage to gain control. Finally he concluded that if they couldn't manage it politically then they would be forced into a period of governance by police power alone. The police violence was filmed by RTÉ television and broadcast worldwide. The date of this march is taken by some historians as being the start of the Northern Ireland Troubles.

In response to these events, O'Neill introduced a Five Point Reform Programme. This granted a number of the concessions that NICRA had demanded but importantly it did not include one man one vote in local government council elections. Despite this the NICRA felt it had made some ground and agreed to postpone its marches. While things were expected to improve, many Catholics felt let down by the limited reforms. A group was formed by university-based activists including Bernadette Devlin and Michael Farrell, named People's Democracy, which began a four-day march from Belfast to Derry on 1 January 1969. On the fourth day, the march was attacked during the Burntollet Bridge incident by around 200 hardline unionists. Although many RUC men were present during the attack none intervened. It later emerged that some of the assailants were in fact off-duty policemen. Many marchers were injured, 13 requiring hospital treatment. The Burntollet attack sparked several days of rioting between the RUC and Catholic protesters in the Bogside area of Derry.

In February 1969, O'Neill called a surprise general election because of the turmoil inside the UUP, after twelve dissident MPs signed a motion of no confidence against O'Neill, and Brian Faulkner resigned from the Government following its appointment of the Cameron Commission. Although pro-O'Neill candidates won a plurality of seats in the general election, O'Neill lost an overall majority among UUP MPs in order to pass his reforms through Parliament.

Resignation
From O'Neill's point of view, the 1969 general election was inconclusive. He was humiliated by his near-defeat in his own constituency of Bannside by Ian Paisley and resigned as leader of the UUP and as Prime Minister on 28 April 1969 after a series of bomb explosions on Belfast's water supply by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) brought his personal political crisis to a head.

In an interview with the Belfast Telegraph published on 10 May 1969 he stated: "It is frightfully hard to explain to Protestants that if you give Roman Catholics a good job and a good house they will live like Protestants because they will see neighbours with cars and television sets; they will refuse to have eighteen children. But if a Roman Catholic is jobless, and lives in the most ghastly hovel he will rear eighteen children on National Assistance. If you treat Roman Catholics with due consideration and kindness they will live like Protestants in spite of the authoritative nature of their Church".

Retirement
O'Neill retired from Stormont politics in January 1970 when he resigned his seat, having become the Father of the House in the previous year. On 23 January 1970, he was created a life peer as Baron O'Neill of the Maine, of Ahoghill in the County of Antrim. (The Maine (or Main) is a river which flows near Ahoghill.)

O'Neill spent his last years at Lisle Court, Lymington, Hampshire, although he continued to speak on the problems of Northern Ireland in the House of Lords where he sat as a cross-bencher. He appeared on the BBC Election Night programme in October 1974, where he clashed with the newly elected Ulster Unionist Party MP for South Down, Enoch Powell, over Northern Ireland's politics. His reform policies are largely forgotten by British Unionists and Irish Nationalists in Northern Ireland; however, he is remembered by historians for his efforts to reform the discrimination and sectarianism within the region during the 1960s. In retirement he was also a trustee of the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust.

Death
He died at his home of cancer on 12 June 1990. He was survived by his wife, son, and daughter. His estate was valued at £443,043.

Writings

 * Terence O'Neill, Ulster at the crossroads, Faber and Faber, London, 1969.
 * Terence O'Neill, The autobiography of Terence O'Neill, Hart-Davies, London, 1972.

title: Terence O'Neill


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It (1927 film)

It (stylized in quotation marks) is a 1927 American silent film directed by Clarence G. Badger and Josef von Sternberg, and starring Clara Bow. It is based on the serialised novella of the same name, republished in "It" and Other Stories (1927), by Elinor Glyn, who adapted the story and appears in the film as herself.

The film was a box office hit and served as Bow's star vehicle, turning her into one of the most popular actresses of the era. It popularized the concept of the "it girl", with the term "it" defined in the opening as the "quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force."

The film had its world premiere in Los Angeles on January 14, 1927, followed by a New York showing on February 5, 1927. It was released to the general public on February 19, 1927.

The picture was considered lost for many years; however, in the 1960s, a nitrate copy was discovered in Prague. In 2001, It was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

The film's copyright was renewed in 1954, and the film entered the public domain on January 1, 2023.

Plot
Spunky shopgirl Betty Lou Spence has a crush on her handsome employer, Cyrus Waltham Jr., the new manager of and heir to the "world's largest store". However, they belong to different social classes and he is already romantically linked to blonde socialite Adela Van Norman. Cyrus's inept friend Monty notices Betty, and she uses him to get closer to Cyrus.

When Betty finally gets Cyrus's attention, she convinces him to take her on a date to Coney Island, where he is introduced to the proletarian pleasures of roller coasters and hot dogs and has a wonderful time. At the end of the evening, he tries to kiss her. She slaps his face and hurries out of his car and into her flat, but then peeks out her window at him as he is leaving.

The next day, meddling welfare workers are trying to take away the baby of Betty's sickly roommate Molly. To protect her friend, Betty bravely claims that the baby is in fact hers. Unfortunately, this is overheard by Monty, who tells Cyrus. Although he is in love with her, Cyrus offers her an "arrangement" that includes everything but marriage. Shocked and humiliated, Betty Lou refuses. She soon strives to forget the whole ordeal ever occurred, forgetting Cyrus for the time being. When she learns from Monty about Cyrus's misunderstanding, she fumes and vows to teach her former beau a lesson.

When Cyrus hosts a yachting excursion, Betty Lou makes Monty take her along, masquerading as "Miss Van Cortland". Cyrus at first wants to remove her from the ship, but he cannot long resist Betty Lou's it factor; he eventually corners her and proposes marriage, but she gets him back, by telling him that she'd "rather marry his office boy", which accomplishes her goal, but breaks her heart. He then learns the truth about the baby and leaves Monty at the yacht's helm to find her. Monty crashes the yacht into a fishing boat, tossing both Betty Lou and Adela into the water. Betty Lou saves Adela, punching her in the face when she panics and threatens to drown them both. At the end of the film, she and Cyrus reconcile on the anchor of the yacht, with the first two letters of the ship's name, Itola, between them. Monty and Adela are upset at losing their friends, but it is implied they pursue a relationship with each other as the film ends.

Cast

 * Clara Bow as Betty Lou Spence
 * Antonio Moreno as Cyrus T. Waltham
 * William Austin as "Monty" Montgomery
 * Priscilla Bonner as Molly
 * Jacqueline Gadsdon as Adela Van Norman
 * Julia Swayne Gordon as Mrs. Van Norman
 * Elinor Glyn as Madame Elinor Glyn
 * Gary Cooper as Reporter

The concept of "It"
The invention of the concept It is generally attributed to Elinor Glyn, but already in 1904, Rudyard Kipling, in the short story "Mrs. Bathurst" introduced It.

"It isn't beauty, so to speak, nor good talk necessarily. It's just 'It'. Some women will stay in a man's memory if they once walk down the street."

In February 1927 Cosmopolitan published a two-part serial story in which Glyn defined It.

"That quality possessed by some which draws all others with its magnetic force. With 'It' you win all men if you are a woman and all women if you are a man. 'It' can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction."

Production
Paramount Pictures paid Glyn $50,000 for the concept, gave her a small part in the film as herself, and gave her a "story and adaptation" credit.

Hope Loring, Louis D. Lighton and George Marion Jr. (intertitles) wrote the screenplay and Carl Sandburg noted that Glyn's magazine story was "not at all like the film, not like it in any respect." In the original version of the story, the character with the magnetic personality was a male. Paramount producers suggested the character be female. Also the original female character, Ava Cleveland, was upper class whereas Betty Lou is working class. Nevertheless, Glyn was fully involved in the film adaptation and was very flexible about the transition.

This is one of the first examples of a "concept film", as well as one of the earlier examples of product placement. The concept of "It" is referred to throughout the film, including the scene where Glyn appears as herself and defines "It" for Mr. Waltham. Cosmopolitan magazine is featured prominently in a scene where the character Monty reads Glyn's story and introduces it to the audience.

Stage actress Dorothy Tree had her first film role in a small, uncredited part. A young Gary Cooper was cast in a minor role as a newspaper reporter.

Reception
It was a hit with audiences all over the United States, breaking box office records. Critics praised the film, especially its star, as "a joy to behold". It turned Clara Bow from an up-and-coming movie actress into the biggest movie star of the 1920s who in the process became a film legend as a result of "It". The term "The It girl" has since entered the cultural lexicon.

A scene from the film is included in the 1931 Paramount promotional compilation film The House That Shadows Built.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: It (1927 film)


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It (novel)

It is a 1986 horror novel by American author Stephen King. It was his 22nd book and the 17th novel written under his own name. The story follows the experiences of seven children as they are terrorized by an evil entity that exploits the fears of its victims to disguise itself while hunting its prey. "It" primarily appears in the form of Pennywise the Dancing Clown to attract its preferred prey of young children.

The novel is told through narratives alternating between two periods and is largely told in the third-person omniscient mode. It deals with themes that eventually became King staples: the power of memory, childhood trauma and its recurrent echoes in adulthood, the malevolence lurking beneath the idyllic façade of the American small town, and overcoming evil through mutual trust and sacrifice.

King has stated that he first conceived the story in 1978, and began writing it in 1981. He finished writing the book in 1985. He also stated that he originally wanted the title character to be a troll, like the one in the children's story "Three Billy Goats Gruff", who inhabited the local sewer system rather than just the area beneath one bridge. He also wanted the piece to interweave the stories of children and the adults they later become.

The novel won the British Fantasy Award in 1987, and received nominations for the Locus and World Fantasy Awards that same year. Publishers Weekly listed It as the best-selling hardcover fiction book in the United States in 1986. It has been adapted into a 1990 two-part miniseries directed by Tommy Lee Wallace, a Hindi 1998 television series directed by Glen Baretto & Ankush Mohla, and a film duology directed by Andy Muschietti. Muschietti's It was released in September 2017 and It Chapter Two was released in September 2019.

1957–1958
During a rainstorm in Derry, Maine, a six-year-old boy named Georgie Denbrough sails a paper boat along the rainy streets before it washes down into a storm drain. Looking in the drain, Georgie encounters a clown who introduces himself as Pennywise the Dancing Clown. Georgie, despite knowing he should not talk to strangers, is enticed by Pennywise to reach into the drain and retrieve his boat. It then rips his arm off, and Georgie dies.

The following June, an overweight eleven-year-old boy named Ben Hanscom is harassed by a bully named Henry Bowers and his gang on the last day of school, escaping into the marshy wasteland known as the Barrens. There, Ben befriends an asthmatic hypochondriac named Eddie Kaspbrak and "Stuttering Bill" Denbrough, Georgie's elder brother. The three boys later befriend fellow misfits Richie Tozier, Stanley "Stan" Uris, and Beverly Marsh, and refer to themselves as "The Losers Club". As the summer draws on, the Losers each encounter Pennywise in terrifying manifestations: a mummy on a frozen canal to Ben, a fountain of blood (that only children can see) from Beverly's sink, a rotting leper to Eddie, drowned corpses to Stan, and a frightening phantom of Georgie to Bill. Meanwhile, an increasingly unhinged and sadistic Bowers begins focusing his attention on his African-American neighbor, Mike Hanlon, and his father. Bowers kills Mike's dog and chases the terrified boy into the Barrens, where he joins the Losers in driving Bowers' gang off in a rock fight, leaving a humiliated Bowers to vow for revenge. Mike becomes a member of the Losers Club after revealing his own encounter with Pennywise in the form of a flesh-eating bird. From Mike's historical scrapbook, the Losers realize that "It" is an ancient monster with a hold on the town. Following further encounters, the Losers construct a makeshift smoke hole that Richie and Mike use to hallucinate It's origins as an ancient alien that came to Earth, beginning a cycle of feeding on children for a year followed by a 27-year-long hibernation.

Soon, Eddie is hospitalized by Bowers and several of his friends, and Beverly witnesses one of the bullies, Patrick Hockstetter, kidnapped by It in the form of a mass of flying leeches. The Losers discover a message from It in Patrick's blood, warning them that It will kill them if they interfere. In hopes that silver can wound It, Ben makes two silver slugs out of a silver dollar, and the Losers enter an abandoned house where Eddie, Bill, and Richie had previously encountered It to attempt to kill It. They manage to wound It with the silver while It is in the form of a werewolf. Deeming the Losers a threat, It manipulates Bowers into murdering his abusive father and chasing the Losers into the sewers to kill them, where his accompanying fellow bullies, Victor "Vic" Criss and Reginald "Belch" Huggins, are both killed by It. This leads Bowers to become lost in the sewers, traumatized.

In the sewers, Bill performs the "Ritual of Chüd" in an attempt to face It in the Macroverse, the alternate universe where It is from, where he meets the monster's antithesis, Maturin, an ancient turtle that created the universe. Bill learns that It can only be defeated during a battle of wills, and sees It's true form, the "Deadlights", before Bill defeats the monster with Maturin's help. After the battle, not knowing if they killed It or not, the Losers get lost in the sewers. To try and regain a sense of direction, Beverly has intercourse with each of the boys to bring the unity back to the group. Once they are safely out, the Losers swear a blood oath to return to Derry should It resurface. Bowers, having lost his sanity by the time he washed out of the sewers into a nearby river, is institutionalized after being blamed for the town's child murders.

1984–1985
In July 1984, three youths brutally attack a young gay man named Adrian Mellon and throw him off a bridge, where both a bully and Adrian's boyfriend then see a clown appear. Adrian is found mutilated, and the teenagers are arrested and charged with his murder.

When a string of violent child killings begins in Derry again, an adult Mike Hanlon, now the town's librarian, calls up the six former members of the Losers Club to remind them of their childhood promise to return if the killings start again. Bill is now a successful horror writer living with his actress wife, Audra; Beverly is a fashion designer, married to an abusive man named Tom Rogan; Eddie runs a limousine rental company and has married a hysterical codependent woman similar to his hypochondriac mother; Richie Tozier is a disc jockey; Ben Hanscom is now thin and a successful but lonely architect; and Stan Uris is a wealthy accountant. Prior to Mike's phone calls, all of the Losers had completely forgotten each other and the trauma of their childhood, burying the horror of their encounters with It. All of the Losers agree to return to Derry, except for Stan, who kills himself in terror of facing It again.

The Losers meet for lunch, where Mike reminds them that It awakens roughly every 27 years for 12–16 months at a time, feeding on children before going into slumber again. The group decides to kill It once and for all. At Mike's suggestion, each person explores different parts of Derry to help restore their memories. While exploring, Eddie, Richie, Beverly, and Ben are faced with manifestations of It (Eddie as Belch Huggins and childhood friends in leper and zombified forms, Richie as a Paul Bunyan statue, Beverly as the witch from Hansel & Gretel in her childhood home, and Ben as Dracula in the Derry Library). Bill finds his childhood bicycle, "Silver," and brings it to Mike's. In the meantime, Audra, who is worried about Bill, travels to Derry; Tom arrives as well, intending to kill Beverly; and Henry Bowers escapes from the mental asylum with help from It.

Henry confronts Mike at the library, but Mike escapes alive. It instructs Henry to kill the rest of the Losers, but Henry is killed while attacking Eddie. It then appears to Tom and orders him to capture Audra, bringing Audra to It's lair, where Audra becomes catatonic, and Tom drops dead in shock. Bill, Ben, Beverly, Richie, and Eddie learn that Mike is near death and realize they are being forced into another confrontation with It. They descend into the sewers and use their strength as a group to "send energy" to a hospitalized Mike, who fights off a nurse that is under the control of It. They reach It's lair and find that It has taken the form of a giant spider. Bill and Richie enter It's mind through the Ritual of Chüd, but they get lost in It. Eddie injures It by spraying his asthma medication down Its throat, but It bites off Eddie's arm, killing him. It runs away to tend to its injuries, but Bill, Richie, and Ben chase after and find that It has laid eggs. Ben stays behind to destroy the eggs, while Bill and Richie head toward their final confrontation with It. Bill fights his way inside It's body, locates It's heart, and destroys it. The group meets up to head out of It's lair, and although they try to bring Audra and Eddie's bodies with them, they are forced to leave Eddie behind. They realize that the scars on their hands from their blood pact have disappeared, indicating that their ordeal is finally over.

At the same time, the worst storm in Maine's history sweeps through Derry, and the downtown area collapses. Mike concludes that Derry is finally dying. The Losers return home and gradually begin to forget about It, Derry, and each other all over again. Mike's memory of the events of that summer also begins to fade, as well as any of the records he had written down previously, much to his relief, and he considers starting a new life elsewhere. Ben and Beverly leave together and become a couple, and Richie returns to California. Bill is the last to leave Derry. Before he goes, he takes Audra, still catatonic, for a ride on Silver, which awakens her from her catatonia, and they share a kiss.

Development
In 1978, King and his family lived in Boulder, Colorado. One evening, King ventured alone to pick up his car from the repair shop and came across an old wooden bridge, "humped and oddly quaint". Walking along the bridge caused King to recall the story of "Three Billy Goats Gruff", and the idea of transplanting the tale's scenario into a real-life context interested him. King was further inspired by a line by Marianne Moore—“imaginary gardens with real toads in them"—which in his mind came out as "real trolls in imaginary gardens." King would return to the concept two years later and gradually accumulated ideas and thoughts, particularly the concept of weaving the narratives of children and the adults they become. King began writing It in 1980, and finished the book five years later. King found influence in the mythology and history surrounding the construction of the sewer system in Bangor, Maine.

Themes
It thematically focuses on the loss of childhood innocence and questions the difference between necessity and free will. Grady Hendrix of Tor.com described the book as being "about the fact that some doors only open one way, and that while there's an exit out of childhood named sex, there’s no door leading the other way that turns adults back into children". Christopher Lehman-Haupt of The New York Times noted that It "concerns the evil that has haunted America from time to time in the forms of crime, racial and religious bigotry, economic hardship, labor strife and industrial pollution", and that the novel's setting "is a museum filled with the popular culture of the 1950s: brand names, rock 'n' roll songs and stars, the jokes and routines of childhood in that era". James Smythe of The Guardian opined that "Pennywise isn't the novel's biggest terror. The most prominent notions of fear in the novel come from the Losers Club themselves: their home lives, the things that have made them pariahs."

Release
On December 13, 2011, Cemetery Dance published a special limited edition of It for the 25th anniversary of the novel (ISBN 978-1-58767-270-5) in three editions: an unsigned limited gift edition of 2,750, a signed limited edition of 750, and a signed and lettered limited edition of 52. All three editions are oversized hardcovers, housed in a slipcase or traycase, and feature premium binding materials. This anniversary edition features a new dust jacket illustration by Glen Orbik, as well as numerous interior illustrations by Alan M. Clark and Erin Wells. The book also contains a new afterword by Stephen King discussing his reasons for writing the novel.

Reception and legacy
It received a mostly positive critical reaction when it was released.

Christopher Lehman-Haupt perceived a lack of justification in Stanley Uris' death and the reunion of the group.

Grady Hendrix described the book as "by turns boring and shocking" and "one of King's most frustrating and perplexing books", and described the behavior of the child characters as idealized and unnatural.

The book's sexual content is controversial among critics and readers. James Smythe considered the book's descriptions of childhood sexuality to be "questionable", and was particularly "shocked" by a scene of the Losers Club engaging in an orgy. Grady Hendrix identified this moment as "in a sense, the heart of the book" and a thematic demonstration of the crossing from childhood to adulthood, and concluded that it is "a way for King to tell kids that sex, even unplanned sex, even sex that's kind of weird, even sex where a girl loses her virginity in the sewer, can be powerful and beautiful if the people having it truly respect and like each other".

The novel has been noted for its exceptional length. Publishers Weekly expressed particular indignation: "Overpopulated and under-characterized, bloated by lazy thought-out philosophizing and theologizing there is simply too much of It."

The character Pennywise has been named by several outlets as one of the scariest clowns in film or pop culture.

In 2003, It was listed at number 144 on the BBC's The Big Read poll—one of three King novels on the list.

Adaptations
In 1990, the novel was adapted into a television miniseries starring Tim Curry as Pennywise the Clown/It, John Ritter as Ben Hanscom, Harry Anderson as Richie Tozier, Richard Masur as Stan Uris, Tim Reid as Mike Hanlon, Annette O'Toole as Beverly Marsh, Richard Thomas as Bill Denbrough, Olivia Hussey as Audra Phillips, Dennis Christopher as Eddie Kaspbrak, and Michael Cole as Henry Bowers. The younger versions of the characters were played by Brandon Crane (Ben), Seth Green (Richie), Ben Heller (Stan), Marlon Taylor (Mike), Emily Perkins (Beverly), Jonathan Brandis (Bill), Adam Faraizl (Eddie), and Jarred Blancard (Henry). The miniseries was directed by Tommy Lee Wallace and scripted by Wallace and Lawrence D. Cohen.

In 1998, the novel was adapted into a television series set in India, starring Lilliput as Pennywise the Clown/Vikram/Woh/It, and Ashutosh Gowarikar (Ashutosh), Mamik Singh (Rahul), Anupam Bhattacharya (Sanjeev), Shreyas Talpade (Young Ashutosh), Parzan Dastur (Young Siddhart), Manoj Joshi (Amit), and Daya Shankar Pandey (Chandu), the series' equivalent of the Losers Club. The series was directed and written by Glen Baretto and Ankush Mohla.

The first of a two-part feature film adaptation, It, was released on September 8, 2017. It is directed by Andy Muschietti, with a screenplay by Chase Palmer, Cary Fukunaga and Gary Dauberman. Instead of a dual narrative, the first film is solely an adaptation of the section that features the characters as children, though the setting has been updated to the late 1980s. It stars Bill Skarsgård as Pennywise and Jaeden Martell as Bill Denbrough. Supporting roles are played by Finn Wolfhard as Richie Tozier, Sophia Lillis as Beverly Marsh, Jack Dylan Grazer as Eddie Kaspbrak, Wyatt Oleff as Stanley Uris, Chosen Jacobs as Mike Hanlon, Jeremy Ray Taylor as Ben Hanscom, Owen Teague as Patrick Hockstetter, Nicholas Hamilton as Henry Bowers, Logan Thompson as Vic Criss and Jake Sim as Belch Huggins.

The second film, It Chapter Two, adapted the "adult" section and updated the setting to the 2010s, specifically 2016. It starred James McAvoy (Bill), Bill Hader (Richie), Jessica Chastain (Beverly), James Ransone (Eddie), Andy Bean (Stan), Isaiah Mustafa (Mike), and Jay Ryan (Ben). Skarsgård reprised the role of Pennywise and the younger actors returned as well. Principal photography wrapped in 2018, and it was released on September 6, 2019.

On March 21, 2022, Variety reported that Muschietti, along with his sister and Jason Fuchs, was developing and executive producing a prequel series for HBO Max, titled Welcome to Derry. The show is said to take place in the 1960s, before the events of It: Chapter One, and will reportedly include the origin story of Pennywise the Clown. Muschietti will direct the first episode, with Fuchs writing all of the episodes for the series.

title: It (novel)


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It (pronoun)

In Modern English, it is a singular, neuter, third-person pronoun.

Morphology
In Modern English, it has only three shapes representing five word forms: Historically, though, the morphology is more complex.
 * it: the nominative (subjective) and accusative (objective) forms. (The accusative case is also called the "oblique". )
 * its: the dependent and independent genitive (possessive) forms
 * itself: the reflexive form

Old English
Old English had a single third-person pronoun – from the Proto-Germanic demonstrative base *khi-, from PIE *ko- "this" – which had a plural and three genders in the singular. The modern pronoun it developed out of the neuter, singular. The older pronoun had the following forms:

This neuter pronoun, like the masculine and feminine ones, was used for both people and objects (inanimate or abstract). Common nouns in Anglo-Saxon had grammatical genders, which were not necessarily the same as the gender of the person(s) referred to (though they tended to accord with the endings of the words). For instance, Old-English (the ancestor of "child", pronounced "chilled") is neuter, as are both  and, literally "male-child" and "female-child" (grammatical gender survives here; some 21st-century English speakers still use "it" with "child", see below).

The word, (which meant "female", ancestor of "wife" as in "fishwife"), is also neuter. ("Man") was grammatically male, but meant "a person", and could, like, be qualified with a gender. (variant, ancestor of "woman") meant "female person" and was grammatically masculine, like its last element, , and like (variant , "male person"). Archbishop Ælfric's Latin vocabulary gives three Anglo-Saxon words for an intersex person, (dialectical "skratt", grammatically masculine),  (grammatically feminine, like its last element, ), and  (grammatically masculine).

Similarly, because is feminine, so are  (inhabitants of a region),  (inhabitants of heaven), and  (inhabitants of hell). is neuter, feminine, and both mean "the Angles, the English people". Nouns for inanimate objects and abstract concepts also had (grammatical) genders. Mark Twain parodied this grammatical structure (which exists in many languages like German) by rendering it literally into modern English:

"It is a bleak Day. Hear the Rain, how he pours, and the Hail, how he rattles; and see the Snow, how he drifts along, and oh the Mud, how deep he is! Ah the poor Fishwife, it is stuck fast in the Mire; it has dropped its Basket of Fishes; and its Hands have been cut by the Scales as it seized some of the falling Creatures; and one Scale has even got into its Eye. And it cannot get her out. It opens its Mouth to cry for Help; but if any Sound comes out of him, alas he is drowned by the raging of the Storm."

About half of the world's languages have gender, and there is a continuum between those with more grammatical gender (based on word form, or quite arbitrary), and those with more natural gender (based on word meaning). The concept of natural gender was beginning to develop in Old English, occasionally conflicting with the established grammatical gender. This development was, however, mostly to take place later, in Middle English.

Middle English (1066–1400s)
In the 12th century, it started to separate and appear without an h. Around the same time, one case was lost, and distinct pronouns started to develop, so that by the 15th century (late Middle English), the forms of it were as follows:

 * Nominative: (h)it
 * Accusative: (h)it / him
 * Genitive: his
 * Reflexive:(h)it self. Also -selfe, -selve(n), -silf, -sijlfe, sometimes without a space.

During the Middle English period, grammatical gender was gradually replaced with natural gender in English.

Modern English (a bit before 1550–present)
Middle English gradually gave way to Modern English in the early 16th century. The hit form continued well into the 16th century but had disappeared before the 17th in formal written English. Genitive its appeared in the later 16th century and had taken over by the middle of the 17th, by which time it had its modern form. "Hit" remains in some dialects in stressed positions only; some dialects also use "it", not "its", as a possessive.

Gender
It is considered to be neuter or impersonal/non-personal in gender. In Old English, (h)it was the neuter nominative and accusative form of hē. But by the 17th century, the old gender system, which marked gender on common nouns and adjectives, as well as pronouns, had disappeared, leaving only pronoun marking. At the same time, a new relative pronoun system was developing that eventually split between personal relative who and impersonal relative which. As a result, some scholars consider it to belong to the impersonal gender, along with relative which and interrogative what.

Functions
It can appear as a subject, object, determiner or a predicative complement. The reflexive form also appears as an adjunct. It very seldom appears as a modifier.

 * Subject: It' s there; it being there; its being there; it allows for itself to be there.
 * Object: I saw it ; I pointed her to it ; It connects to itself .
 * Predicative complement: In our attempt to fight evil, we have become it ; It took more than ten years it, to fully become itself .
 * Determiner: I touched its top.
 * Adjunct: It did it itself .
 * Modifier: They were the it crowd.

Dummy it
A dummy pronoun is one that appears only for syntactic reasons and has no semantic value. One use of it is as a dummy pronoun (see also there) as in it's raining or it's clear that you understand.

In Old English, a subject was not required in the way it is today. As the subject requirement developed, there was a need for something to fill it with verbs taking zero arguments. Weather verbs such as rain or thunder were of this type, and, as the following example shows, dummy it often took on this role. Gif on sæternesdæg geðunrað, þaet tacnað  demena and gerefena cwealm

If  on  saturn's-day    thunders,  that portends judges' and  sheriffs'   death

If it thunders on Saturday, that portends the deaths of judges and sheriffs But these were not the only such verbs. Most of the verbs used without a subject or with the dummy it belong to one of the following semantic groups: And examples still remain, such as the expression suffice it to say.
 * 1) (a)  Events or happenings (chance, happen, befall, etc.)
 * 2) (b)  Seeming or appearance (seem, think, become, etc.)
 * 3) (c)  Sufficiency or lack (lack, need, suffice, etc.)
 * 4) (d)  Mental processes or states (like, list, grieve, please, repent, rue, etc.)

The same use of dummy it exists in cleft constructions, such as it's obvious that you were there.

Dependents
Pronouns rarely take dependents, but it is possible for it to have many of the same kind of dependents as other noun phrases.

 * Relative clause modifier: That's not the it that I meant ; *That's not it that I meant .
 * Determiner: That's not the it that I meant; *That's not the it.
 * Adverb phrase external modifier:  not even itself

Semantics
It is used to denote an inanimate physical object, abstract concept, situation, action, characteristic, and almost any other concept or being, including, occasionally, humans.

"You have a way with you, Bernard. I'm not sure I like."

"The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into face to see what was the matter with."

"' looks like nobody but ,' said Mrs. Owens, firmly.[...] It was then that[...] the child opened eyes wide in wakefulness. stared around [...]"

"But he [Jesus] said to them, ' is I; do not be afraid.'"

It is usually definite and specific, but it can also have no referent at all (See Dummy it). It can be debatable whether a particular use is a dummy it or not (for instance: "Who is it?"—"It's me!").

Samuel Taylor Coleridge proposed using it in a wider sense in all the situations where a gender-neutral pronoun might be desired: QUÆRE—whether we may not, nay ought not, to use a neutral pronoun, relative or representative, to the word "Person," where it hath been used in the sense of homo, mensch, or noun of the common gender, in order to avoid particularising man or woman, or in order to express either sex indifferently? If this be incorrect in syntax, the whole use of the word Person is lost in a number of instances, or only retained by some stiff and strange position of the words, as—"not letting the person be aware wherein offense has been given"—instead of—"wherein he or she has offended." In my [judgment] both the specific intention and general etymon of "Person" in such sentences fully authorise the use of it and which instead of he, she, him, her, who, whom.

The children's author E. Nesbit consistently wrote in this manner, often of mixed groups of children: "Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to get out of the carriage." This usage (but in all capital letters, as if an acronym) also occurs in District of Columbia police reports.

Some people use it as a gender-neutral pronoun.

Pronunciation
According to the OED, the following pronunciations are used:

Popular culture

 * Stephen King's 1986 book It is about a shape shifting, malevolent entity that often manifests as a clown.
 * In games of tag, the person trying to tag others is known as it.

title: It (pronoun)


text:
Gerry Collins (politician)

James Gerard Collins (born 16 October 1938) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Minister for Foreign Affairs from March 1982 to December 1982 and 1989 to 1992, Minister for Justice from 1977 to 1981 and 1987 to 1989, Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1970 to 1973, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Industry and Commerce and Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Gaeltacht from 1969 to 1970. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Munster constituency from 1994 to 2004. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Limerick West constituency from 1967 to 1997.

Early life
Collins was born in Abbeyfeale, County Limerick, in 1938. The son of James Collins, his father was a former adjutant of the West Limerick Brigade of the Irish Republican Army during the Irish War of Independence. The father took the republican side during the subsequent Civil War and a quarter of a century later was elected to Dáil Éireann at the 1948 general election as a Fianna Fáil candidate.

Gerry Collins was educated at St. Ita's College in Abbeyfeale before later attending the Patrician College, Ballyfin. Following the completion of his secondary schooling, he attended University College Dublin, where he became secretary of the Kevin Barry Cumann of Fianna Fáil. He unsuccessfully ran for Student Union president but was defeated by Brendan Ó Cathaoir. Collins subsequently worked as a vocational school teacher.

Political career
Collins first became involved in politics in 1965, when he was appointed assistant general-secretary of Fianna Fáil. Following the death of his father in 1967, he was elected to Dáil Éireann for Limerick West in the subsequent by-election. He was also co-opted onto Limerick County Council and various other local committees.

Following Fianna Fáil's re-election at the 1969 general election, Collins secured promotion as a Parliamentary Secretary to George Colley, the Minister for Industry and Commerce and the Gaeltacht. Here he largely had responsibility for the promotion of Gaeltacht affairs and the Irish language.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (1970–1973)
In the wake of the Arms Crisis in 1970, a major reshuffle of the cabinet took place. Four ministers, Charles Haughey, Neil Blaney, Kevin Boland and Mícheál Ó Móráin, were either sacked, resigned or retired from the government, due to the scandal that was about to take place. Collins was appointed Minister for Posts and Telegraphs. It was a tough time for Fianna Fáil, as the party nearly faced a split due to disagreements over its Northern Ireland policy. Collins, in spite of coming from a strong republican background, remained loyal to Taoiseach Jack Lynch in his moderate approach to the Northern Ireland situation.

During his tenure as a Minister, Collins introduced a controversial law which prohibited organisations committed to violence, such as the IRA, from making media broadcasts. On 19 November 1972, an interview with Seán Mac Stíofáin was broadcast on the RTÉ This Week radio programme. Mac Stíofáin was arrested on the same day and the interview was later used as evidence against him on a trial of IRA membership, and on 25 November, he was sentenced to six months imprisonment by the Special Criminal Court in Dublin. Political fallout arising from the interview was considerable and some days later, Collins sacked the entire RTÉ Authority as he felt that they disobeyed the controversial new law.

In 1973, Fianna Fáil were ousted after sixteen years in government, as the National Coalition of Fine Gael and the Labour Party took office. Collins was retained on Jack Lynch's new front bench as Spokesperson for Agriculture. After two years in that position he was promoted to Spokesperson for Justice in a front bench reshuffle in 1975. In this capacity he was highly critical of the government's management of the Garda Síochána.

Minister for Justice (1977–1981)
In defiance of the opinion polls and political commentators Fianna Fáil swept to power with a huge 20-seat Dáil majority following the 1977 general election. Collins, at thirty-eight years of age, was one of the youngest members of Jack Lynch's new cabinet and was appointed Minister for Justice. In spite of the sensitive nature of the portfolio, he was viewed as a safe pair of hands. He had a good working relationship with the Garda Síochána, primarily due to his establishment of the Ryan tribunal, which saw all ranks receive huge pay increases in his first year in office.

In December 1979, Jack Lynch resigned as Taoiseach and as Fianna Fáil leader. The succession resulted in a straight contest between Charles Haughey and George Colley. The latter had the backing of the majority of the existing cabinet, including Collins, however, a backbench revolt saw Haughey become Taoiseach. Collins, much to his disappointment, was retained in his existing position as Minister for Justice, holding office until Fianna Fáil lost power following the 1981 general election.

Minister for Foreign Affairs (1982)
The Fine Gael-Labour government was short-lived and Fianna Fáil returned to power, following the February 1982 general election. Collins was rewarded by being named Minister for Foreign Affairs, in Haughey's second cabinet. One of the major incidents of his tenure at Iveagh House was the outbreak of the Falklands War. Although Anglo-Irish relations were at an all-time low, Collins opposed the act of aggression by the Argentinian government at United Nations and EEC levels.

The Fianna Fáil government fell in October of that same year and Collins's party were out of power following the November 1982 general election. A period of instability followed within Fianna Fáil as a number of TDs attempted to oust Charles Haughey as party leader. Desmond O'Malley was seen as the clear front-runner to succeed Haughey, however, Collins's name was also mentioned alongside former European Commissioner Michael O'Kennedy. In the end, Haughey survived as party leader, after being told at a meeting of the parliamentary party by Collins that Fianna Fáil had lost credibility due to his continued leadership. In spite of this he was subsequently appointed front bench spokesperson on Foreign Affairs on the new front bench.

Minister for Justice/Foreign Affairs (1987–1992)
The results of the 1987 general election saw Fianna Fáil return to power as a minority government. Collins was disappointed to return to his old position as Minister for Justice, preferring instead to take over as Foreign Minister, however, he was once again regarded as a safe pair of hands in a controversial portfolio.

Fianna Fáil retained power following the 1989 general election, albeit with the support of the Progressive Democrats in a coalition government. Collins returned to the cabinet in his preferred position as Minister for Foreign Affairs. January 1990, saw him take over as President of the European Community Council of Ministers during Ireland's six-month tenure. This was largely seen as a very successful presidency for the Irish government and was a personal triumph for Collins.

In 1991, tensions began to surface within Fianna Fáil regarding the continued leadership of Charles Haughey. Minister for Finance Albert Reynolds was the main challenger, however, he had little support from his cabinet colleagues. In an infamous interview on the Six One News Collins made a plea to Reynolds asking him not to challenge Haughey for the leadership of the Fianna Fáil party: "This is going to wreck our party right down the centre and it's going to burst up government". https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30278425.html The incident was much parodied, particularly by Dermot Morgan later that year. Reynolds's leadership challenge failed on that occasion and Haughey survived.

In February 1992, Haughey stepped down as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader and Reynolds immediately threw his hat in the ring in the leadership contest. Collins contemplated running in the leadership race after a number of approaches from his colleagues, however, in the end he declined to stand. Reynolds won the subsequent leadership election by a large majority. The formation of his new cabinet caused widespread shock as Collins and seven of his cabinet colleagues were effectively sacked in favour of supporters of the new Taoiseach. This effectively brought Collins's domestic career in politics to an end.

Member of the European Parliament (1994–2004)
In 1994, Collins was elected as an MEP for the Munster constituency. He retired from domestic politics at the 1997 general election, being replaced by his brother, Michael J. Collins. Collins was re-elected to the European Parliament in 1999, but lost his bid for another term at the 2004 European Parliament elections. Subsequent to this defeat, he announced his retirement from politics.

title: Gerry Collins (politician)


text:
Outliner

An outliner (or outline processor) is a specialized type of text editor (word processor) used to create and edit outlines, which are text files which have a tree structure or a tree view, for organization. Textual information is contained in discrete sections called "nodes", which are arranged according to their topic–subtopic (parent–child) relationships, like the members of a family tree. When loaded into an outliner, an outline may be collapsed or expanded to display as few or as many levels as desired.

Outliners are used for storing and retrieving textual information, with terms, phrases, sentences, or paragraphs attached to a tree. So rather than being arranged by document, information is arranged by topic or content. An outline in an outliner may contain as many topics as desired. This eliminates the need to have separate documents, as outlines easily include other outlines just by adding to the tree.

The main difference between a hand-written outline and a digital one is that the former is usually limited to a summary or blueprint of a planned document, while the latter may easily include all of the content of the entire document and many more. In other words, as a hand-written work an outline is a writing tool, but on a computer, it is a general purpose format supported by a robust development and display medium capable of handling knowledge from its creation to its end usage.

Outliners may be used in content creation instead of general word processors for capturing, organizing, editing, and displaying knowledge or general textual information. Outliners are ideal for managing lists, organizing facts and ideas, and for writing computer programs. They are also used for goal and task management (including personal information management and project management), and for writing books and movie scripts.

An alternative to outliners are mind mappers, which display a tree structure as a node–link diagram.

Design
The principal attribute of outline editors is that they support or enforce the use of a hierarchy of their items.
 * Editing: Sound parent-child relationships are enforced when the user modifies the document structure. For example:
 * Promoting, demoting, copying, or deleting a parent has the same effect on the children.
 * Every item entry must be within one level of its predecessor, such that each item must be a sibling or child of the preceding item (thus, no item can be a grandchild of the preceding item).
 * Viewing: The tool enables the user to affect the display by level. For example:
 * Applying styles by outline level (e.g., bold all 1st level items).
 * Displaying selected levels (e.g., show all 1st and 2nd level items, but none deeper).
 * Lifting an entire section out to work on it in isolation, ignoring everything else during that editing, then dropping it back into place (known as hoisting and de-hoisting).
 * Search/Filter: The tool displays only items that contain the query terms plus their ancestors (parent, grandparent...) to give them context.
 * File import and export: Both the content and structure of outlines are conveyed when files are imported or exported (e.g., from and to tab-indented files).
 * Fields/Columns: Items can also have additional fields of information. This data can be shown as columns of data in the outline or as fields in the second pane (see 'Layout' below). Some outliners also allow the user to create custom fields and/or filter on fields. It can be changed further.

Layout
There are two basic types of outliners: one-pane or intrinsic, and two-pane or extrinsic, each with its strengths and weaknesses.

A one-pane outliner is known as an intrinsic outliner because the text itself is organized into an outline format—individual sections (such as paragraphs) of text can be collapsed or expanded, while keeping others in view. Everything is displayed within a single area, hence the term one pane. One of the strengths of one-pane outliners is that, because the text itself is what is structured and because several nodes of text are visible at once, it is easy to edit across sections. The drawback is that, because the structure is not always visible, there is not as strong an overview of the whole or ability to quickly navigate between sections as with a two-pane outliner. Some word processors, such as Microsoft Word, have an Outline Mode to help with structuring documents.

A two-pane outliner separates structure from content—the structure is extrinsic to the text. A tree structure with node titles is presented in one pane, and the text is shown in another. Since the structure is always clearly shown at all times separately from content, this format allows for a quick overview of the structure, and easy navigation. The drawback is that since only one node's worth of text is shown at one time and navigation has the additional step of crossing panes, the structure is more rigid, making editing across nodes more difficult. This view is similar to many file browsers and email programs (which can be thought of as three-pane outliners). This type of structure is useful also as a document management tool where the second pane is a document in place of textual information.

A one- and two-pane outliner may be combined as a hybrid. This allows multiple notes' text and graphics to be shown at the same time. The organizational power of outline in hybrid is in the parent outline structure, not in the second pane text, making it a very effective structure for topical organization. One additional advantage of hybrid is that single pane can be used as single pane outliner with second pane used for notes or reference tracking.

A third approach to intrinsic outlines is the multi-column outliner. It is similar to the one-pane outliner in that the text itself is organized into an outline format. However, the text sections do not collapse or expand, and all sections are visible but held in a separate column (one for each level). This approach allows structure and content to be visible at the same time.

File formats
Several file formats support an outline structure natively or encourage the use/creation of outline structures.

 * XML - XML's purpose is to aid information systems in sharing structured data
 * HTML/XHTML - outlines relatively trivial thanks to nested markup
 * OPML - simple XML-based format designed for outlines, but also used for syndication feedlists
 * OML - alternative to OPML
 * RDF - (various formats) has web-oriented node & arc graph model, a subset can be used for outline
 * XOXO - dedicated HTML-based microformat for outlines
 * CHM - standard Windows format for help, books, etc.

Browser-based outliners
This table shows a list of notable browser-based outliners categorised by the functionality that they provide (see 'Design' above). Browser-based outliners run inside a desktop or mobile web browser (smart phone or tablet) and may synchronise the outline's data with a remote server or store it locally on the user's device.

title: Outliner


text:
Stellvia

Stellvia (宇宙のステルヴィア), also known as Stellvia of the Universe, is an anime series set in space. As a prelude to the series, the Earth of year 2167 AD is shown to be devastated by a powerful electromagnetic shockwave. This is caused by a nearby star, Hydrus Beta, 20 light-years away, going supernova. As a result, 3 billion of the 14 billion people on Earth were wiped out. The series itself is set 189 years later, in the year 2356 AD. Civilization has been rebuilt with humanity having united together to face the coming of the second shockwave of the supernova. The second shockwave, unlike the first, is to contain a great deal of matter composed of the remnants of the star itself. Stellvia ran for 26 episodes and was produced by the animation studio Xebec. It was distributed in the United States by Geneon. In September 2007 Geneon halted all distribution of anime DVDs in America, including Stellvia. A sequel was originally announced for 2005, but was canceled after internal difficulties.

Beginning with the May 2003 issue, a manga adaptation by Ryo Akizuki was serialized in Dengeki Daioh and has been published in the US as a two volume graphic novel series by DrMaster. The word Stellvia is composed of two Latin words, stella meaning star(s) and via meaning street or road. Therefore, Stellvia is roughly translated as The Road to the Stars.

The series makes references to things such as Theory of knowledge, CAS, and Extended Essay, which suggests that Stellvia might have been partially inspired by the International Baccalaureate program, or at least, included an Ex-IB student in its development.

In 2018, Discotek Media announced that they have rescued the series following Geneon's downfall.

The series opening theme is "Asu e no brilliant road (明日へのbrilliant road)" by angela.

Plot
The series takes place in the year 2356 A.D., around 189 years after a worldwide catastrophe had wiped out 10% of Earth's population. To keep track on all space activities, mankind has built numerous colossal space stations called "foundations" all across the Solar System. After passing the Space Academy's entrance exams, Shima Katase embarks to the Earth-based foundation Stellvia to fulfill her dreams of seeing the galaxy and to prevent any more interstellar catastrophes from destroying Earth, once and for all.

Characters

 * Shima "Shipon" Katase (片瀬 志麻)

 * The protagonist of the story is Shima (or "Shīpon (しーぽん)" as she is dubbed by Arisa) who joins the Stellvia foundation's space program so that she could "see the stars while looking forward, rather than having to look up". In the beginning, she fluctuates between complete confidence in her abilities and believing she couldn't do anything. The series depicts her as extremely diligent, although she is also a natural genius.

 * As the series progresses, she learns to understand her mistakes and not think that she has to be perfect or else fail. For instance, after a rocky start to her training, during which she was dead last in her class at piloting, she takes the advice of Kouta Otoyama and realizes she was trying to keep track of far too much information on her ship displays. Her piloting improves dramatically as a result. However, she still will lose her confidence often. Once she is like that she will get into a deep depression like a little kid thinking that it is because she does not have talent. Actually, Shima has a rare talent. Shima is offered to be the 5th member of the Big 4, after passing the test. Despite her early setbacks as a pilot, her programming abilities are top notch from the very start, and she eventually combines the two in order to become even more formidable in the cockpit. She is called Shipon because the first time she piloted one of the Biancas she flew around like a ping-pong ball. She and Kouta develop a romantic relationship (they share their first kiss on episode 12). She likes Kouta very much but somehow gets irritated when he can't understand her. During the genesis mission she was piloting Halcyon (also called Lucyon by Arisa and Rinna). Some irregularities were interrupting the Infinity, so Halcyon released its barrier and absorbed the irregularities. She almost died at that risk. It is shown that she loves Kouta very much by almost sacrificing her life by saving him from the irregularities.

 * Kouta Otoyama (音山 光太)

 * Kouta is an enigmatic character. He and Shipon develop a romantic relationship (they share their first kiss in episode 12) but there's still a lot about him that remains unknown. He has an older sister who runs an astronomical observatory in Japan. He often gives advice which is as enigmatic as himself.

 * He consistently achieves rank C in every class, without exception, regardless of how easy or hard the subject is. And when he was warned of the possibility of Ayaka attacking Shipon during training, he displays extraordinary piloting abilities beyond what his ship should have been capable of handling. Another example would be during a simulator-game where Rinna scored Rank A, and Shima scored Rank B, but he scored Rank S. When Shima asks why Kouta does not do the best during class, especially since he is capable of it, he merely says: he wonders why also. Pierre once remarks "Talented hawks hide their talons" when referring to Kouta's skills.

 * On a different note, James was curious of Kouta's 'vision' and said he was chosen by the universe.

 * Arisa Glennorth (アリサ・グレンノース)

 * Arisa is Shipon's best friend at the Stellvia foundation. They meet on the shuttle going to the station from Earth at the beginning of the term, and find themselves rooming together and in the same class as well. Though Arisa is nowhere near Shipon in academic or piloting ability, she finds Shipon to be an inspiration to improve herself, and calls Shipon her "Star of Hope". Later in the series, she begins focusing on becoming a mechanic, rather than a pilot.

 * Rinna Kazamatsuri (風祭 りんな)

 * Rinna is a transfer student from the Ultima foundation, and considers Shipon to be both a friend and chief rival. Rinna is a few years younger than Shipon and most of the other students, but because there are few children at Ultima (it being the newest of the foundations, and still incomplete), she has little to do with herself but play with simulators. As a result, she's far better at piloting and zero-G movement than most people years older than she is.

 * Yayoi Fujisawa (藤沢 やよい)

 * Yayoi is one of the older students in Shipon's class. Yayoi had been in Stellvia's training program 2 years before, but left after a flight training accident. Ayaka Machida attempted to save her, and failed, but it turned out the "accident" was intentionally caused by Ayaka in the first place.

 * Recognizing the signs of another "accident" when Ayaka took Shipon out to train alone, she warns Kouta of what might be about to happen. Kouta is able to prevent another tragedy.

 * Despite the attacks on herself and Shipon, Yayoi lies to protect Ayaka when it looked like she might face expulsion from Stellvia.

 * Akira Kayama (栢山 晶)

 * Akira is a quiet and somewhat taciturn member of Shipon's class as well as Yayoi's roommate. Though she becomes irritated easily when around people too much, she learns to enjoy spending time with Yayoi, Shipon, Arisa and the others of their group. Late in the series, she starts dating JoJo.

 * Ayaka Machida (町田 初佳)

 * One of the "Big 4" of Stellvia, (older students who are at the top of their classes), Ayaka is shown as competitive in the extreme. She has something of an inferiority complex which drives her to be the absolute best, and she can't tolerate seeing others better than her.

 * Two years in the past, when Yayoi was her classmate, she arranged an accident to ensure her own position at the top of the class. Things went a little out of hand, however, and it looked like Yayoi might lose her life, so Ayaka rescued her. Yayoi was hospitalized and traumatized, and left Stellvia for a time. Now with Shima Katase looking like she would surpass Ayaka as well, the same thing almost happened. Had Yayoi not returned to Stellvia and recognized the danger Shipon might be in, Ayaka might have seriously injured or even killed her. Due to Yayoi covering up the truth of the earlier incident, Ayaka was not expelled from Stellvia, but was suspended for a time.

 * After Yayoi forgives Ayaka for nearly causing her to lose her life.

 * Richard James (リチャード・ジェームス)

 * Richard is the Head Teacher of Stellvia's Space Academy. He is also the one who conducted the entrance interview for Shima. He is avuncular and usually takes the optimistic view of events. Richard also encourages his peers to put more trust in the prep students when events put them in critical situations. Richard plays a lot of chess with Hutter.

 * Carl Hutter (カール・ヒュッター)

 * Hutter is a teacher at Stellvia's Space Academy. He appears unemotional and calm at all times. Usually, Hutter plays the Devil's Advocate against Richard James' optimism. He helps Shima with her confidence towards the end of the series. He is a sentient alien in origin later on in the series.

 * Jinrai Shirogane (白銀 迅雷)

 * Shirogane is another teacher at Stellvia's Space Academy; he appears to teach programming. He is particularly enthusiastic about the school's athletics carnival and Astroball, (a game that has some similarities with Lacrosse), which he played in his student days at Stellvia. Passionate and determined, Jinrai is intent upon having the students' voices heard when no-one will listen. Jinrai has feelings for the flirtatious school nurse Ren.

 * Leila Barthes (レイラ・バルト)

 * Instructor in charge of Pilot Training at Stellvia. She used to be an elite pilot, and spent some time wallowing in despair after losing the "elite" tag. However, she recovers from this (after an incident on a space station that was under construction) and chooses to become an instructor at Stellvia. She is tough toward the students because she wants them to succeed, she has a loving smile toward the childlike attributes of her students and is very scary when she is mad.

 * Ren Renge

 * A nurse at Stellvia. Ren is very flirtatious and early on in the series dates different men, which causes Jinrai to become jealous. She also works closely with the pilots, especially Kouta, who she assists with training for missions. She seems to also have feelings for Jinrai.

 * Joey Jones (ジョイ・ジョーンス)

 * Another of Shipon's classmates, Jojo (as he is called) is loud and enthusiastic. He is not very good in his studies nor pilot training and sometimes get needled because of it. Nevertheless, he is not all bad apples, he eventually starts dating Akira later on in the series. He sometimes has some rather good things to say that are very influential, he tries to cheer Akira up one time when she is depressed at the gap between her and the top students.

 * Pierre Takida

 * Another of Shipon's classmates, Pierre is good looking and a big talker, but doesn't seem to have a lot more than that going for him. He likes to hit on virtually every girl he lays eyes on, even Rinna in one episode. He shows particular interest in Yayoi, but Yayoi is adamant in refusing him.

 * Masaru Odawara (小田原大)

 * Another of Shipon's classmates, he is seen hanging out with Joey and Pierre. Others call him by his nickname, Dai, which is another reading for his given name in kanji (大). In the last few episodes he becomes very serious and says some very influential things which is broadcast through the solar system as the last sounds from Stellvia before the inevitable end.

 * Najima Gable (ナジマ・ゲブール)

 * One of the Big 4. She usually quotes something of Shakespeare (sometimes attributing the quote to the wrong play) or the Bible. Nothing much else is known about her.

 * Kent Austin

 * One of the Big 4. He usually tries to stir Ayaka up with information that could be potential competition for her with no intention of any of it leading to the "accidents" arranged by Ayaka. He gets Shipon and her friends out of a spot of trouble at the beginning when he saw them as he was passing by. Kent seems to like Ayaka more than just a friend. Though he doesn't try to make anything out of it.

 * Ritsuo Shoujin

 * One of the Big 4. Devoted to training, he is described as being a "Ninja" by Shipon. Shoujin is very quiet and reserved, rarely speaking. He merely nods and "hmm"'s when in agreement.

Video games
Two video games have been released based on the anime series, both named "Uchuu no Stellvia". The PlayStation 2 game was released on the 22 January 2004. The Game Boy Advance game was released on the 23 April 2004. Both games are adventure dating simulations though they do vary in gameplay.

In the PlayStation 2 game, the player assumes the role of a new student who has enrolled at the Stellvia Space Station Foundation. Each day he assigns various commands on what to do such as studying or resting in the same type of gameplay that Tokimeki Memorial has except for weekends since there is no school then. At the weekends he may invite a character on a date. There are various events to be seen in the game and there are 10 multiple endings. The game resembles the aforementioned Tokimeki Memorial game series in many ways (though in Tokimeki Memorial the player only assigns various commands for the coming week and not for each day).

The Game Boy Advance game is different from the PlayStation 2 game in terms of gameplay and plays a lot like the famous Sotsugyou series of games also known as Graduation in the west. The main difference in this game as opposed to the PlayStation 2 game is that the player assumes the role of a new teacher instead of a student in the PS2 game. He must teach the four main heroines (Ayaka and Rinna also come into the game later on as his students) various subjects so that they are prepared for the Great Mission. The game is like Graduation in that the player has to balance out the various girl's stats and must not neglect them since in this case, they start to skip classes and the game can end. Throughout the classes the player character must ask the girl's various questions on the corresponding subject. After a question a number of things can happen. A girl may put up her hand to answer the question, the player can also choose one of the girls to answer or can answer the question themselves. The player may also individually teach a specific girl on subjects. Various events can be seen with the various characters from the series at lunchtime or after school.

title: Stellvia


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Golden Horseshoe

The Golden Horseshoe (Fer à cheval doré) is a secondary region of Southern Ontario, Canada, which lies at the western end of Lake Ontario, with outer boundaries stretching south to Lake Erie and north to Lake Scugog, Lake Simcoe and Georgian Bay of Lake Huron. The region is the most densely populated and industrialized in Canada. Based on the 2021 census, with a population of 7,759,635 people in its core and 9,765,188 in its greater area, the Golden Horseshoe accounts for over 20 percent of the population of Canada and more than 54 percent of Ontario's population. It is part of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, itself part of the Great Lakes megalopolis.

The core of the Golden Horseshoe starts from Niagara Falls at the eastern end of the Niagara Peninsula and extends west, wrapping around the western end of Lake Ontario at Hamilton and then turning northeast to Toronto (on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario), before finally terminating at Clarington in Durham Region. The term Greater Golden Horseshoe is used to describe a broader region that stretches inland from the core to the area of the Trent–Severn Waterway, such as Peterborough, in the northeast, to Barrie and Lake Simcoe in the north, and to the Grand River area, which includes cities such as Brantford and Guelph, to the west. The extended region's area covers approximately 33500 km2, out of this, 7300 km2 or approximately 22 percent of the area is covered by the environmentally protected Greenbelt. The Greater Golden Horseshoe forms the neck of the Ontario Peninsula.

Etymology
The horseshoe part of the region's name is derived from the characteristic horseshoe shape of the west end of Lake Ontario. The golden part is historically attributed to the region's wealth and prosperity, according to the Canadian Oxford Dictionary.

The phrase Golden Horseshoe was first used by Westinghouse Electric Corporation president Herbert H. Rogge in a speech to the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce on January 12, 1954:

"Hamilton in 50 years will be the forward cleat in a "golden horseshoe" of industrial development from Oshawa to the Niagara River ... 150 mi long and 50 mi wide ... It will run from Niagara Falls on the south to about Oshawa on the north and take in numerous cities and towns already there, including Hamilton and Toronto."

The speech writer who actually penned the phrase was Charles Hunter MacBain, executive assistant to five Westinghouse presidents including Rogge.

Definition
The Golden Horseshoe was officialized on July 13, 2004, in a report from the provincial Ministry of Public Infrastructure Renewal titled Places to Grow, in which the region’s borders extended west to Waterloo Region, north to Barrie / Simcoe County, and northeast to the county and city of Peterborough. A subsequent edition released on February 16, 2005, broadened the term further, adding Brant, Haldimand and Northumberland Counties to the region. The Greater Golden Horseshoe region is officially designated in Ontario Regulation 416/05 under the Places to Grow Act. The designation Greater Golden Horseshoe has legal significance with respect to taxation: in April 2017, the Government of Ontario announced plans to impose a 15 per cent Non-Resident Speculation Tax (NRST) on non-Canadian citizens, non-permanent residents and non-Canadian corporations (with exceptions or rebates for refugees, qualifying students and certain people working in Ontario ) buying residential properties containing one to six units in the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH).

The provincial transit authority Metrolinx makes use of the term Greater Golden Horseshoe. The Metrolinx definition is consistent with the original 2004 Places to Grow definition. However, the city and county of Peterborough is not included.

Ethnicity
The Golden Horseshoe is among the most multicultural regions in Canada.

In 2021, there were 3,762,090 people of European heritage, forming a plurality of the population (49.0%); the next largest groups were those of South Asian descent (1,273,525 people or 16.6%) and those of East Asian heritage (813,015 people or 10.6%)

Economy
The economy of this region is very diverse. , the Toronto Stock Exchange is the third-largest in North America by market capitalization (after the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq), and seventh-largest in the world. Cities including Hamilton, Oshawa, Oakville, Whitby and Kitchener all contain major large-scale industrial production facilities, Hamilton being dominated by the steel industry and Oakville and Oshawa primarily in the automotive industry. Other significant automotive-production facilities also exist in Brampton, and St. Catharines. While manufacturing remains important to the economy of the region, the manufacturing sector has experienced a significant decline since 2000 as a result of unfavourable currency exchange rates, increasing energy costs, and reduced demand from the United States, which is by far the largest market for Ontario's goods.

The Port of Hamilton and the Port of Toronto are the two largest inland ports on Lake Ontario. The Welland Canal system handles tanker ships and recreational traffic through the Great Lakes. Large rail and truck distribution facilities are located in Toronto, Vaughan and Brampton. Food processing is also a key ingredient in the economy. Niagara Falls has one of the world's largest per-capita tourist economies, benefiting from millions of tourists coming to see its waterfalls, shop in its numerous stores, and visit its many attractions. The winemaking and fruit-growing industries of the Niagara Peninsula produce wines, in particular, the ice wine for which the region is known.

, sectors such as information technology, health care, Agtech, tourism, research and finance provide the bulk of growth in the Golden Horseshoe. The cities of Brampton, Markham, Waterloo Region and Mississauga are emerging as hubs for technology and innovation. The region is one of the largest tech cluster in North America outside of Silicon Valley. The area is home to more than 15,000 tech companies, including over 5,000 startups, and nearly 300,000 employees in high-tech industries. About two-thirds of those employees are classified as “tech workers,” which includes programmers, developers, etc. with 8 percent of the total workforce employed in tech.

Education
The Golden Horseshoe is home to several universities, including the University of Toronto and McMaster University in Hamilton, which are ranked 1st and 4th in Canada, respectively, by the Academic Ranking of World Universities. Other universities in the region include Brock University in St. Catharines, Trent University in Peterborough, York University in northern Toronto near Vaughan, OCAD University in downtown Toronto, Ontario Tech University in Oshawa, Toronto Metropolitan University (formerly Ryerson University), the University of Guelph, the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, and the Université de l'Ontario français in downtown Toronto. The Golden Horseshoe is also home to many colleges.

Public primary and secondary schooling is typically provided by school boards, largely organized at the municipal or county/regional level. The only school board that operates throughout the Golden Horseshoe is Conseil scolaire Viamonde, a public French-language school board, and Conseil scolaire catholique MonAvenir, a public French-language separate school board. Both of these public French-language school boards operate across the Ontario Peninsula.

Attractions
The CN Tower in downtown Toronto is among the most internationally notable attractions in the Golden Horseshoe. Other major attractions in downtown Toronto include the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario, and the Hockey Hall of Fame.

The region is home to several shopping malls such as Yorkdale Shopping Centre, Toronto Eaton Centre, Fairview Mall, Scarborough Town Centre, and Sherway Gardens. Located in the suburbs of Toronto are Vaughan Mills in Vaughan, Bramalea City Centre in Brampton, Square One Shopping Centre in Mississauga, and Pacific Mall and Markville Shopping Centre in Markham.

Annual cultural festivals that draw tourists and locals alike include the Toronto Caribbean Carnival (formerly known as Caribana) and Taste of the Danforth in Toronto.

The Niagara Escarpment, a world biosphere reserve as designated by the United Nations, runs from the north at Bruce Peninsula and then east through the region cutting the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls. The Bruce Trail runs along the escarpment through mostly protected woodlands. The Cheltenham Badlands in Caledon is an environmentally degraded area along the Niagara Escarpment. Similar protection of some wooded areas exists on the Oak Ridges Moraine running east–west in the north end of the Greater Toronto Area, although development pressures continue to threaten the natural habitat.

The Niagara Region has become one of the major wine-production areas in Canada. The Golden Horseshoe contains many small towns with historic main streets, most notably the community of Niagara-on-the-Lake, located near the Niagara River. Niagara Falls has one of the world's largest waterfalls and attracts millions to Clifton Hill, a neighbourhood with souvenir stores, small attractions, restaurants and skyline-defining hotels. There are also two casinos: Casino Niagara and Niagara Fallsview Casino Resort.

Hamilton has the historical reputation of being a blue-collar city; however, waterfront redevelopments and large-scale gentrification have been rapidly changing the perception of the city, although it retains a dominant industrial base. Hamilton has over 100 waterfalls and cascades throughout the region.

Seasonal amusement parks in the Golden Horseshoe include Canada's Wonderland, run by Six Flags in Vaughan; Wet'n'Wild Toronto (formerly Wild Water Kingdom) in Brampton; African Lion Safari in Hamilton and Cambridge; and Marineland in Niagara Falls. Though technically a provincial fair, the Exhibition Place hosts the annual Canadian National Exhibition, while the nearby Ontario Place is being redeveloped.

Sports
The Golden Horseshoe is home to many amateur and professional sports clubs, and university and college varsity programs. Many professional sports clubs in the city form a part of a larger sports league. Most university varsity programs are regulated by U Sports, while college varsity programs are regulated by the Canadian Collegiate Athletic Association.

In addition to the number of sports clubs and programs based in the region, the Golden Horseshoe has also hosted a number of international multi-sport events, including the 1930 British Empire Games (predecessor to the Commonwealth Games), the 1976 Summer Paralympics, the 2015 Pan American Games and Parapan American Games, the 2017 Invictus Games, the 2017 North American Indigenous Games, and the 2018 NACAC Championships. Although much of the 1976 Summer Olympics was held in Montreal, several matches for the event's soccer tournament were played in Toronto. Toronto is among various cities in North America to host select matches for the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

Note that the Toronto Blue Jays temporarily played their home games in the United States (more specifically Dunedin, Florida and Buffalo, New York) due to the COVID-19 pandemic in North America in 2020 and 2021, while the Toronto Raptors played their home games in the United States (more specifically Tampa, Florida) during the pandemic to minimize cross-border travel.

Transportation
The Golden Horseshoe is served by a network of expressways; central among these are the Queen Elizabeth Way and Highway 401, the latter of which is one of the widest and busiest expressways in the world.

Public transit in the region is coordinated by Metrolinx. Regional transit is provided by GO Transit trains and buses, and by intercity bus operators such as Ontario Northland and Coach Canada. GO Transit's train network encompasses seven commuter rail lines linking municipalities in the Golden Horseshoe to Toronto's Union Station, which is the busiest railway station in Canada and the second-busiest railway station in North America, with 72 million passengers per year. Expansion is underway to facilitate all-day 15-minute or better commuter train service, electrification and increased ridership on five of the busiest lines. Local transit is provided by municipal agencies, the largest of which is the Toronto Transit Commission, which operates three subway lines and one former light metro line and an extensive bus and streetcar network. Rapid transit systems that operate primarily outside Toronto include the VIVA bus rapid transit in York Region, the ION light rail system in Kitchener-Waterloo, and the Mississauga transitway. Line 5 and Line 6 are under construction LRT lines in Toronto that are part of its subway system. The Ontario Line is another subway line under construction in Toronto. The Hurontario LRT is currently under construction in Peel Region, as well as various bus rapid transit projects in Peel and York Regions.

The primary airport of the region is Toronto Pearson International Airport (officially Lester B. Pearson International Airport), located in Mississauga. Handling 50.5 million passengers in 2019, it is the busiest in Canada and the 31st busiest in the world. Other regional airports of significance include John C. Munro Hamilton International Airport located in southern Hamilton, which is a major regional freight and courier location as well as the Region of Waterloo International Airport in Kitchener; Buttonville Airport (closed since 2023) and Billy Bishop airport in the Greater Toronto Area. Within driving distance is Buffalo Niagara International Airport in Cheektowaga, New York, in the United States. Buffalo Niagara carries the second-largest passenger volume in the region, serving over 5 million passengers in 2018. It is frequently used by Canadian passengers flying to US destinations.

title: Golden Horseshoe


text:
Manga artist

A manga artist, also known as a mangaka (漫画家), is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2013, about 4,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan, plus thousands of part timers and wannabes.

Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist before entering the industry as a primary creator. More rarely a manga artist breaks into the industry directly, without previously being an assistant. For example, Naoko Takeuchi, author of Sailor Moon, won a Kodansha Manga Award contest and manga pioneer Osamu Tezuka was first published while studying an unrelated degree, without working as an assistant.

A manga artist will rise to prominence through recognition of their ability when they spark the interest of institutions, individuals or a demographic of manga consumers. For example, there are contests which prospective manga artist may enter, sponsored by manga editors and publishers. This can also be accomplished through producing a one-shot. While sometimes a stand-alone manga, with enough positive reception it can be serialized in a weekly, monthly, or quarterly format. They are also recognized for the number of manga they run at any given moment.

Etymology
The original Japanese word can be broken down into two parts: manga (漫画) and ka (家).

The manga corresponds to the medium of art the artist uses: comics, or Japanese comics, depending on how the term is used inside or outside Japan.

The -ka (家) suffix implies a degree of expertise and traditional authorship. For example, this term would not be applied to a writer creating a story which is then handed over to a manga artist for drawing. The Japanese term for such a writer of comics is gensakusha (原作者).

In 2009, 5,300 mangaka were honored with a title published in bound volume in Japan. In a 2010 message Japan Cartoonists Association chairman, Takashi Yanase says: "[w]hile Japan is often said to be world's cartoon kingdom, not a few people will surely be wondering what exactly the Japanese mean by the term 'cartoon'. Unfortunately, there is no hard-and-fast definition that can be offered, since the members of this association lay claim to an extensive variety of works."

Becoming a manga artist
Traditionally in order to become a manga artist, one would need to send their work into a competition held by various publishing companies. If they won their work would be published and they would be assigned an editor and officially "debut" as a manga artist. Nowadays there are many self-published manga artists on the internet posting their work on websites. It is possible for these manga artists' works to be officially picked up by a publishing company, such as Shueisha. For example, One-Punch Man started off as a webcomic before Shueisha began publishing a manga remake on Tonari No Young Jump.

Relationship to other staff
While Japan does have a thriving independent comic market for amateur and semi-professional artists, creating manga professionally is rarely a solo effort. Manga artists must work with an assortment of others to get their work completed, published, and into the hands of readers.

Editor
Most professionally published manga artists work with an editor, who is considered the boss of the manga artist and supervises series production. The editor gives advice on the layout and art of the manga, vets the story direction and pace, ensures that deadlines are met, and generally makes sure that the manga stays up to company standards. Naoki Urasawa compared the relationship between a manga artist and their editor to that of the one between a music producer and a recording artist, specifically citing George Martin's relationship with The Beatles. The editor may also function as a brand manager and publicist for a series. When a manga is the basis for a media franchise, the editor may also supervise the designs for anime adaptations, and similar products, though this duty may also fall to the manga artist or an agent. An example of a manga artist and their editor is Akira Toriyama and Kazuhiko Torishima.

Writer
A manga artist may both write and illustrate a series of their own creation, or may work together with an author. The manga artist typically has a strong influence on dialog even when paired with a writer, as any conversation must fit within the physical constraints imposed by the art. Takeshi Obata of Death Note, Tetsuo Hara of Fist of the North Star, and Ryoichi Ikegami of Sanctuary are all successful manga artists who have worked with writers through the majority of their careers.

Assistants
Most manga artists have assistants who help them complete their work in a clean and timely manner. The duties of assistants vary widely, as the term incorporates all people working for a manga artist's art studio, but is most commonly used to refer to secondary artists. The number of assistant artists also varies widely between manga artists, but is typically at least three. Other manga artists instead form work groups known as "circles" but do not use additional assistants, such as the creative team CLAMP. A few manga artists have no assistants at all, and prefer to do everything themselves, but this is considered exceptional.

Assistants are commonly used for inking, lettering, and shading, though the predominance of black and white art in manga means that unlike in the western comic industry, a studio rarely employs a colorist. Some manga artists only do the sketchwork for their art, and have their numerous assistants fill in all of the details, but it is more common for assistants to deal with background and cameo art, leaving the manga artist to focus on drawing and inking the characters. Assistants may also be employed to perform specialized artistic tasks. Go Nagai, for instance, at one time employed a specialist to draw helicopters and other military vehicles, Kaoru Mori employed a historical consultant for Emma, and series that incorporates photorealistic architecture, animals, computer-rendered imagery, or other technically demanding effects may employ or contract separate artists trained in those techniques. Assistants almost never help the manga artist with the plot of their manga, beyond being a sounding board for ideas. A manga artist's assistants might be listed in the credits for a manga tankōbon, and short interviews with or illustrations by assistant artists are a common form of bonus material in these collections, but they typically do not receive individual credits.

Most manga artists started out as assistants, such as Miwa Ueda to Naoko Takeuchi, Leiji Matsumoto to Osamu Tezuka, Kaoru Shintani to Leiji Matsumoto, and Eiichiro Oda, Hiroyuki Takei and Mikio Itō to Nobuhiro Watsuki, who was himself an assistant to Takeshi Obata. It is also possible for an assistant to have an entire career as such without becoming an independent manga artist. Assistants, particularly specialists, may work with several different manga artists at the same time, and many assistants also self-publish works of their own in the dōjinshi scene.

title: Manga artist