Tokodo refused to publish her manga, but provided her with Tezuka's original manuscript for Red Snow to develop her craft.
Maki was among the first waves of artists to embrace sutairu-ga, starting with her manga Shōjo Sannin that was published in August 1958.
[4][5][6] Common topics and themes of Maki's shōjo manga include ballet, the search for family love (a genre known as haha-mono), and the pursuit of dreams.
[7] These works are distinguished by their contemporary Japanese settings, contrasting mainstream shōjo manga of the era that often depicted a fantasized and idealized West.
[8] Maki became acquainted with multiple manga artists in Tokyo, including Tezuka, Leiji Matsumoto and Tetsuya Chiba.
[14] Following this project, she decided to create her own manga in the gekiga style: Mashūko Banka (1968) published in the women's magazine Josei Seven.
[14] To create her gekiga, Maki was inspired by the work of Kazuo Kamimura, in particular his atmosphere and his stories centered on the lives of strong women.
Maki sent a sheet of the story The Narcissus with Red Lips from her gekiga Seiza no onna and won first prize of the competition, becoming the first manga to be internationally awarded.
[16] With Miyako Maki being the first woman to write manga for an adult audience, she paved the way for the creation of redikomi with the help of authors like Masako Watanabe or Hideko Mizuno who joined her shortly afterwards.
[18] In 1975, she won the Montreal International Comic Contest for Seiza no onna (星座の女) [19] and later received the 1989 Shogakukan Manga Award (General category) for Genji Monogatari.