Hiroaki Samura

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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. His other works include Ohikkoshi, as well as one shot manga such as Emerald and Sokabasu no Yoru. He has also done various illustrations for magazines and EroGuro work too. He has an EroGuro book out that is mostly a compilation of some of the work he has created. His favourite bands are Queen, Black Sabbath and Jittarin Jin.

He likes Black Sabbath so much he named one of his characters, Kuroi Sabato (literally a translation of Black Sabbath), in Blade after the band.

[edit] Art Style

He has a thorough knowledge of anatomy that allows him to create uniquely expressive poses and angles. His unusual use of accurately detailed shots of hands and feet makes them almost as reflective of character and mood as his faces. Atmospheric backgrounds and landscapes round out the look of the manga, which incorporates many panels done in a finished, shaded pencil style rather than in inked line art. His superb drawing skills are shown to their best advantage in these penciled panels. This applies to most of the manga and artwork he has created. He doesn't seem to use pencils as much as he used to though, preferring a sketchy ink style instead.

[edit] Education

Samura (b. 1970) says that he always wanted to be a manga artist. However, unlike most mangaka, 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 [1] He never completed the course because he got picked up by Afternoon before he graduated to do Blade of the Immortal.