akiyama quit high school and moved to tokyo to become a manga artist. after working briefly as a book wholesaler, he became an assistant for manga artist kenji morita. he made his major debut in 1966 with the gag-manga "gaikotsu-kun", which was published in "bekkan shōnen magazine", and shocked readers in 1970 with "ashura", which contained numerous unsettling depictions of human life. the first chapter of "ashura" contains a scene where a woman commits cannibalism to prevent herself from dying of starvation, and later attempts to eat her own child as well. the august 2, 1970 edition of "weekly shōnen magazine", which first published this chapter, was banned in several regions as a result of this scene, propelling akiyama to infamy within the manga industry. akiyama continued his career with "kokuhaku" (lit. "confessions"), which began serialization in the 11th edition of "weekly shōnen sunday" in 1971. this manga took on an unprecedented format where akiyama would make a confession each week (for instance, in one chapter he confesses that he is a murderer), only to admit that his confession was a lie in the following week's chapter. after repeating this for the duration of the manga, akiyama suddenly announced his retirement, cutting off all of the serializations he held on various magazines to embark on a solo journey across japan.