Takao Aoki

Takao Aoki (青木 たかお) is a Japanese mangaka.

Aoki's most well-known work is Beyblade, which became a franchise around children who battle with spinning tops. He also made "Bakufu Slash;Kizna", "A War Story of Metal Walker" and "Mini-4WD Fighter V". Most of Aoki's manga revolve around video games or toys.


 * Bakuten Shoot Beyblade = Beigoma (a Japanese spinning top game)
 * Bakufu Slash! Kizna Arashi = Based on the PS2 video game. In this game, a boy named Arashi (who has a minor resemblance to Naruto from the Naruto anime series) who has a blue dragon as a monster partner which he controls with an item called the Demon Seal Nail. Arashi's element is wind as he has a white cloth on his arm as proof of his element. His rival is Enn, who has a dragon named Blade and has a fire element with a flame on his arm as proof of his element. His girlfriend is named Mika. This is an SCEJ game only released in Japan. The official site is http://www.jp.playstation.com/scej/title/kizna/index.html


 * A War Story of Metal Walker = Based on the computer game
 * Mini-4WD Fighter = Based on the car racing game

There is barely any information on Aoki. He works for Shogakukan. Word is that he went to Chiyoda Art school and took a special course in manga. He currently resides in Kamakura, Tokyo. His new manga is called "X-Zone".

Aoki Takao roughly translates to "Blue tree high man".

Aoki has worked on character designs on several video games. He creates manga published in Shogakukan magazine. There are rumors that he made a Zoids manga known as "Tekkai!Zoids"

He once made a public appearance at a Beyblade Championship tournament. His manga career most likely ended in 2005 seeing how he published no manga ever since.