Takashi Okazaki

Takashi Okazaki (岡崎 能士) is a Japanese manga artist, visual designer, and graphic designer most notable for writing and illustrating the manga series Afro Samurai.

Biography
Takashi Okazaki was born in the Kanagawa Prefecture in 1974 and graduated from the Tama University of the Arts.

Works
Takashi Okazaki was one of four people to debut in the self-published Nou Nou Hau manga magazine on November 1998. Takashi Okazaki's first series Afro Samurai was first published as a dōjinshi in the preparatory issue zero of the magazine, which was also featured as the cover. Afro Samurai was serialized till the magazine's end on September 2002. Since then, the Afro Samurai manga has been adapted into a five-episode anime series and a made-for-TV feature film named Afro Samurai: Resurrection. After the release of the anime series, Takashi Okazaki went back and recreated the original dōjinshi into a two-volume manga series which has only been released in the United States by Tor Books and Seven Seas Entertainment. On November 23, 2004, Takashi Okazaki wrote and illustrated a 9-panel manga published in the pamphlet of the Blade: Trinity soundtrack. Takashi Okazaki also illustrated the ending of the Cho-Kōryu-Gōjin Danke Choen (超交流合神ダンケシェーン) series serialized in a flyer handed out at the Japanese club "UNIT". Cho-Kōryu-Gōjin Danke Choen was created by Kugelblitz—a collaborative effort between Nou Nou Hau and the German comic magazine Moga Mobo.

Publications

 * Afro Samurai! (amateur comic, 1998–2002)
 * 9-panel Blade: Trinity comic (2004)
 * Cho-Kōryu-Gōjin Danke Choen (超交流合神ダンケシェーン) (2005)
 * Afro Samurai Maniaxxx!!! (2007)
 * Afro Samurai (recreation, 2008–2009)