Award-winning manga artist Minoru Furuya made his debut with the acclaimed gag manga Ping-Pong Club in 1993. Since then, his comics have become ever more character-focused, emotionally intricate, and thematically dark--an about-face so extreme that fans worried he had suffered a mental breakdown. His more recent series are an extension of his early work, however, his detailed and lifelike art still informed by humor and caricature. Furuya is a poet of discomfort and a champion of outsiders, misfits, losers, and loners, his comics depicting the awkward struggles and crushing banality of everyday life in excruciating detail.

Ping-Pong Club spawned a popular anime, and two of his subsequent series have been adapted into feature films. Ciguatera will be his English-language manga debut.