Hiroaki Samura

Hiroaki Samura 沙村 広明
Born	(1970-02-17) February 17, 1970 Chiba prefecture, Japan
Nationality	Japanese
Area(s)	Writer, illustrator
Notable works	Blade of the Immortal

Hiroaki Samura (沙村 広明, Samura Hiroaki, b. February 17, 1970 in Chiba prefecture) is a Japanese writer/illustrator and creator of Blade of the Immortal, as well as several other short works. He has also done various illustrations for magazines and ero guro work.

Education

Samura says that he always wanted to be a manga artist. However, unlike most manga artists, he attended art school for a time and has a classical art education. He disliked oil painting and prefers to work in black and white. He says that he disliked oil painting from the start because of the smell of the paint and employed someone to help himself cheat to get through the course, which he is quite open about in interviews. He never completed the course because he got picked up by Afternoon before he graduated to do Blade of the Immortal.

Works

Manga:

• Blade of the Immortal, a series about an immortal samurai named Manji. Originally published in Afternoon by Kodansha.
• Emerald, a one-shot piece set in the American old west. Originally published in Afternoon by Kodansha.
• Ohikkoshi, a collection of brief romantic comedy stories. Originally published in Afternoon Season Zokan by Kodansha.
• Sakkabasu no Yoru (Night of the Succubus), a Darkstalkers dōjinshi featuring Morrigan Aensland.
• Bradherley’s Coach, a collection of dark tales all centered on the fictional noble family carriage that ferries, once a year, the girls of various orphanages to their newly adopted home.

Illustrations:

• Hitodenashi no Koi (The Love of the Brute), an illustration series of adult themed pencil drawings (extreme violence and sexual material). The illustrations were published from 1998 to 2006. The series jumped from one publication to the next and featured in both erotic and pornographic ''tankōbon such as "Tokyo H" and "Manga Erotics F", youth and art magazines such as "QuickJapan" and "Comickers", before finally being collected in an artbook.
• Cover art for the Japanese version of Blood Will Tell, a video game based on Osamu Tezuka's Dororo.