Takashi Okazaki

(born March 18, 1974) is a Japanese manga artist, visual designer and graphic designer, most notable for writing and illustrating the manga series Afro Samurai. Early life Okazaki was born in Kanagawa Prefecture and graduated from the Tama University of the Arts. Career Okazaki was one of four artists to debut in the self-published Nou Nou Hau manga magazine in November 1998. His first manga series, Afro Samurai, was first published as a dōjinshi in the preparatory issue zero of the magazine, and was featured as the cover. Afro Samurai was serialized until the magazine's end in September 2002. Afro Samurai was adapted into an anime miniseries and a sequel television film, 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 was released in the United States by Tor Books and Seven Seas Entertainment. Also, the first volume has been released in Germany, the second to be released in August 2011. On November 23, 2004, 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 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. Okazaki also designed the characters in The Game Baker's 2016 game, Furi. He is also credited as original character designer for the 2017 Garo: Vanishing Line anime.