Chinese Name: 游素蘭
Born: Nov. 19, 1967
Birthplace: Nantou County (Central Taiwan)
Did You Know That…?
Debuted in junior high school, Yu Su-lan rose as a well-known comic artist during high school. Her best-selling works were adapted into television shows and video games, and she was recognized as the pioneer of isekai (異世界) and boys’ love genre. In 2024, she was awarded the Special Contribution Award at the 15th Golden Comics Awards.
Yu Su-lan is a renowned Taiwanese artist and author. Born in Nantou County, she began studying fine arts at National Chushan Senior High School (國立竹山高級中學). While still a student, she won several competitions, including the 4th and 5th Xiao Mi Comic Awards (小咪漫畫獎) for Best Newcomer with “The Night (夜)” and “Peace (和平).”
Known for her elegant, charming, and romantic style, Yu’s comics blend elements of both Western and Eastern art. In 1989, she began to serialize “The Seven Mirrors’ Stories (古鏡奇譚)” in Weekend Comics (周末漫畫) magazine, starting with the first installment, “Melancholic Princess (傾國怨伶).” With its stunning and endearing character designs, the series received high praise within the industry and is recognized as the first Taiwanese manga to feature Chinese period aesthetics.
In 1991, “The King of Blaze (火王),” the second installment, was serialized at Princess Comic Magazine (公主快報). It continued to receive positive reception from readers across East Asia, including Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong, and was voted a fan favorite at polls organized by China Times. In 2018, “The King of Blaze” was adapted into a two-part television series on Mango TV in China.
Yu has shared that she holds herself to high artistic standards, insisting that her comics feature clean and beautiful lines. Her character designs were influenced by her grandfather, a Taoist priest. As a child, she observed him drawing gods and deities, and this immersive experience made her highly attentive to detailed period costume designs.
Yu created “Melancholic Princess” at the age of 22. After winning the Xiao Mi Comic Awards for Best Newcomer for two consecutive years, she attempted to write a story centering an emperor resurrected with a ghostly face. However, she thought to herself, “I don’t know how to draw an old man; I only know how to draw pretty faces.” As a result, she changed the lead character into a girl and integrated the story with her knowledge of I Ching (易經, also known as the “Book of Changes”), which she had studied in high school.
“Melancholic Princess” follows the story of a Tang Dynasty princess who dies with deep regrets and is reborn as a modern-day teenage girl practicing martial arts. During that time, Japanese shojo manga was highly popular in Taiwan. Yu’s distinctive style—marked by its fantastical elements and its seamless blend of East and West, modern and ancient—came to be seen as representative of Taiwan’s shojo genre. Her subsequent work, “The King of Blaze,” pushed the boundaries of the genre by exploring themes of same-sex romantic relationships and polyamory.
Some readers have recognized “The King of Blaze” as a pioneering work in Taiwan’s boys’ love genre, Yu said. She believes that the essence of art lies in boundless creativity, adding that the extraordinary settings in her comics and novels, which some regarded as outrageous, were conceived when she was still a student.
Reflecting on the challenges in her career, Yu noted that she was often questioned or criticized for her works’ alignment with Japanese comics rather than Taiwanese ones. Having lived and been educated in Taiwan, and with creative influences from her grandfather and father, she wondered: Why shouldn’t my works be considered part of Taiwan’s comics?
Over time, Yu observed that such criticism gradually diminished, as traditional definitions of genre have been challenged and redefined. “This is the maturity of the market, and readers have come to appreciate different kinds of works,” she said. With this perspective, she continues to explore her craft in semi-retirement.
