Koji Yoshida, born June 23, 1978 in Chiba-ken, Japan, is Hiramaru Kazuya's reluctant editor, known for manipulating Hiramaru using any means possible in order to keep Hiramaru working. He is one of the senior editors at Shonen Jump and is team leader of a group of editors, which includes Yamahisa and Uchida, who is Kisaku Arai's editor. Yoshida is a highly astute editor, quickly discerning that that Eiji Nizuma was the anonymous artist for +Natural and that there is something unscrupulous about Toru Nanamine's work. He is often able to maintain a cool head in most situation where other editors would become agitated and emotional.
Yoshida's first notable appearance occurs at the serialization meeting that brings about the debut of Detective Trap. He introduces Otters 11, which is Hiramaru's debut work, which leads to the manga's serialization. Because of Hiramaru's constant complaining and laziness, Hiramaru and Yoshida soon develop a hostile relationship and Yoshida is constantly forced to make sure that Hiramaru has not found some way to escape working.
Appearance[]
Yoshida wasn't seen for many chapters since his face usually covered by Hiramaru's text balloons. When seen, Yoshida is a young man with black hair that falls just above his shoulders. In several scenes where he bribes Hiramaru, his thin lips are comically shown in detail, in the style of a dark, non-mainstream manga to show he is being manipulative.
Personality[]
Yoshida is perhaps the most manipulative of the editors shown. When he realizes that forcing Hiramaru to work isn't applicable to an efficient and/or long-running series, he bribes him with rich items or information about Aoki Ko in order to get him back to work and pay off the debts he owes for buying such items. Yoshida is able to keep this running for an extended period of time (throughout the 200 chapters of Otters 11), even threatening Hiramaru with disassociation with Shueisha if he does not get serialized again after Otters 11 gets canceled.
Yoshida's reason and rationality are even more key to his character. He is able to deduce that Niizuma Eiji was responsible for +Natural's artwork and worries that Hiramaru's manga will take a dive if he asks Aoki Ko out and gets rejected, knowing that Hiramaru most probably will get rejected. This reasoning has its limits, however, as Yoshida was greatly surprised that Aoki accepted Hiramaru's proposal, though it would later scratch away most of Hiramaru's negativity and cause a dive in his manga quality.
Summary[]
Serialization Meeting[]
New Years Party[]
Yoshida tries to talk to Hiramaru about Otters #11. When he meets Hiramaru, who was with Niizuma, Mashiro, and Takagi, he takes him away to talk about chapter three of Otters #11. Hiramaru asks him if he enjoys life, Yoshida just ignores it and says to use it as the tagline for chapter three. Yoshida later appears when Mashiro and Takagi say they aren't going to lose to Niizuma or Hiramaru.
Trivia[]
- The real-life Yoshida has edited or is editing Hunter x Hunter (by Yoshihiro Togashi), Hikaru no Go (by Takeshi Obata, Yumi Hotta), Death Note (by Tsugumi Ohba, Takeshi Obata), Reborn! (by Akira Amano), D.Gray-man (by Katsura Hoshino), and Medaka Box (by Nisio Isin).
- Yoshida has also made cameo appearances in other media, such as Gintama.
- Yoshida is the only person who helped Hiramaru with love. No one else has.