is a Japanese
manga artist
A is a comic artist who writes and/or illustrates manga. As of 2006, about 3,000 professional manga artists were working in Japan.
Most manga artists study at an art college or manga school or take on an apprenticeship with another artist be ...
born in
Adachi, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for his manga ''
Hellsing'' and
''Drifters''.
Career
Hirano said he learned how to be a manga artist from reading
Akira Toriyama
is a Japanese manga artist and character designer. He first achieved mainstream recognition for his highly successful manga series ''Dr. Slump'', before going on to create ''Dragon Ball'' (his best-known work) and acting as a character design ...
and Akira Sakuma's ''
Hetappi Manga Kenkyūjo
is a Japanese manga series by Akira Toriyama and Akira Sakuma. It is a collection of lessons on how to create manga published between October 1982 to March 1984 in ''Fresh Jump'', and collected into a single ''tankōbon'' released in May 1985 ...
''. Starting his career first as a manga artist's assistant (self-described as "horrible" and "lazy" in said assistant position), and later a
hentai
Hentai is anime and manga pornography. A loanword from Japanese, the original term ( ) does not describe a genre of media, but rather an abnormal sexual desire or act, as an abbreviation of . In addition to anime and manga, hentai works exis ...
manga artist, he went on to enjoy somewhat limited success with other relatively unknown manga titles such as ''Angel Dust'', ''Coyote'', ''Gun Mania'' and ''Hi-Tension''. His first major success came with his manga series ''
Hellsing'', which got its start and was subsequently serialized in a monthly
manga magazine, ''
Young King OURs'', towards the latter half of 1997.
However, ''Hellsing'' was not the earliest Hirano series to be published in ''Young King OURs'' monthly. In 1996, the same year ''Hellsings precursor, ''The Legends of Vampire Hunter'', was first released as a single H short story in ''Heavenly Pleasure'' (a monthly H-centric manga magazine), another World War II-based short story named ''Hi-And-Low'' was being published in ''Young King OURs'' by a then lesser-known Kouta Hirano. The story takes place primarily at a train station in Russia and features two female characters that are strikingly similar to Integra Helsing from ''Hellsing'' and Yumiko/Yumie in ''
Crossfire''; and who are, in actuality, undercover Axis spies in-league with one another for a common purpose: the success of
Operation Barbarossa. This story saw ink in one issue of ''OURs'' before being discontinued in favor of ''Hellsing'' itself.
A number of Hirano's older works are now considered collector's items due to the small number of them that exist. Many characters from ''Hellsing'' appear in his previous works and, as mentioned above, there is a rare hentai prototype of ''Hellsing'' titled ''The Legends of (the) Vampire Hunter''. At Otakon 2006, he said in an interview that in about a year and a half to two years, he will finish ''Hellsing'' and move on to a different project which he says will be kept a secret until the time comes. This statement was proven true when ''Hellsing'' ended with 95 chapters in October 2008. Hirano has since begun a new series, ''
Drifters'', which was published in April 30's issue of ''YKO'' and which Hirano keeps working on to this day.
Hirano has also been part of a doujinshi circle titled
GUY-YA, consisting of himself and ''
Read or Die'' manga artist
Shutaro Yamada
is a Japanese film and stage director.
Biography
Shutaro Oku was born in 1975 in Tokyo, Japan. From 2000 to 2009, Oku directed many theatrical films, notably ''The Labor Cop'', ''Japanese Naked Tribe'', ''Aka-sen'', ''Cain's Descendant'', and ' ...
.
Works
Alphabetical list of works
*''Angel Dust''
*''Assassin Colosseum''
*''Be Wild!!''
*''Bishōnen de Meitantei de Doesu''
*''Count Pierre Eros' Gorgeous Daily Grind''
*''Coyote''
*''
Crossfire''
*''Daidōjin Monogatari''
*''Deep''
*''Desert Schutzstaffel''
*''
Drifters''
*''Doc's story''
*''Front''
*''Gun Mania''
*''
Hellsing''
**''
Hellsing: The Dawn''
*''Hi-Tension''
*''Hi-and-Low''
*''Ikaryaku''
*''Ikasu Sōtō Tengoku''
*''karera no Shūmatsu''
*''Koi no Strikeback''
*''Mahō no Muteki Kyōshi Kawaharā Z''
*''Magic School''
*''Susume! Ikaryaku''
*''Susume!! Seigaku Dennō Kenkyūbu''
*''The Legends of Vampire Hunter''
*''The Weekenders''
*''UFO 2000''
References
External links
Official Geneon Entertainment ''Hellsing'' website*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hirano, Kouta
1973 births
Hentai creators
Living people
People from Adachi, Tokyo
Manga artists from Tokyo