Hiroaki Samura

Hiroaki Samura (沙村 広明) 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 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.

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 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
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.
 * 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 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.