Hiromu Arakawa Hiromu Arakawa Born on May 8, 1973, in Tokachi, Hokkaidō, Japan, Arakawa was born and raised on a dairy farm with three elder sisters and a younger brother. Arakawa thought about being a manga artist "since [she] was little" and during her school years, she would often draw on textbooks. After graduating high school, she took oil painting classes once a month for seven years while working on her family's farm. During this time, she also created dōjinshi manga with her friends and drew yonkoma for a magazine. Arakawa moved to Tokyo in the summer of 1999, and started her
Shizuka Arakawa a disappointment which she later credited as a motivation to stay in the sport and regain top form. She felt she could not quit on such a down note. In November 2005, Arakawa changed coaches to Nikolai Morozov. At the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, Arakawa skated in the short program to Fantaisie-Impromptu by Chopin. She went into the long program in third place, behind pre-event favorites Sasha Cohen and Irina Slutskaya. Less than a point separated the top three skaters. In the long program, Cohen was the first of the three leaders to skate, followed by Arakawa and