- Hiroaki Samura
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 andEroGuro work. 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 andJittarin 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.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
mangaka , he attended art school for a time and has aclassical art education. He dislikedoil 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 [http://web.archive.org/web/20050216061036/http://userpages.umbc.edu/~cmould1/bonus/qjint.html] 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 ".
*"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 doujinshi featuring Morrigan Aensland.Illustrations
*"Hitodenasi 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 "tankoubon " 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
* [http://web.archive.org/web/20050216061036/http://userpages.umbc.edu/~cmould1/bonus/qjint.html Hiroaki Samura Interview for Quick Japan 38 (August 2001)]
* [http://www.darkhorse.com Dark Horse (Publishers of "Blade Of The Immortal")]
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