Hiroaki Samura

Hiroaki Samura 沙村 広明
Born	February 17, 1970 (1970-02-17) (age 42) 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. He has an ero guro book out that is mostly a compilation of some of the work he has created.

His favourite bands are Queen, Black Sabbath and Jitterin' Jinn. 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.

Contents 1 Art Style 2 Education 3 Works 4 External links

Art Style

He has a good understanding of anatomy that allows him to create uniquely expressive poses and angles. His 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.

Education

Samura (b. 1970) 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 ^[1] He never completed the course because he got picked up by Afternoon before he graduated to do Blade of the Immortal.

Works

Comics/manga

• Blade of the Immortal, an ongoing series about an immortal samurai named Manji. Originally published in Afternoon by Kodansha.

Samura also appears as a Pinwheel Seller in episode 10 of the animated series. In addition he key animated for two episodes and provided a scroll painting on episode 13.

• 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 mangabon and 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.

External links

1. ^ [1]

• Hiroaki Samura Interview for Quick Japan 38 (August 2001)
• Dark Horse (Publishers of Blade Of The Immortal)

Persondata
Name	Samura, Hiroaki
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	February 17, 1970
Place of birth	Chiba prefecture, Japan
Date of death
Place of death