Yasuhiro Nightow

Doujin Circle: Kamonegi Switchblade

Twitter: @nightow, @KamonegiSB

Yasuhiro Nightow is a Japanese manga artist, character designer, and ilustrator. His major work "Trigun" was adapted into two anime series and film. He also designed the characters for the video game and anime series "Gungrave", and has been working on the manga "Blood Blockade Battlefront (Kekkai Sensen)" since 2009.

He studied social science and then majored in media studies at Housei University. While there, he drew manga as a hobby and created some doujinshi works to sell at events. After graduation, he worked Sekisui House where he sold apartments. After three and a half years, he quit his job to draw full-time, and in 1992, Nightow created a one-shot story titled "Call XXXX" for a contest in Super Jump magazine, which was later included in his short story collection "S. Flight" by the publisher Kadokawa Shoten. His first manga to be serialized would be a one-volume adaptation of the popular fighting game franchise "Samurai Spirits" in 1994.

A year after finishing his manga adaptation of Samurai Spirits, Nightow began publishing "Trigun" in the monthly magazine Shounen Captain in 1995. While still in its early chapters, Trigun received a sudden offer to be adapted into an anime by Madhouse studio, resulting in the manga and anime being produced simultaneously, with Nightow actively participating in meetings with the staff and contributing with ideas and concepts to be used in the adaptation. During the serialization of the Trigun manga and the production of its anime, in 1996 Nightow also worked as a character designer for the Super Famicom RPG game "Energy Breaker". In 1997, the Shounen Captain magazine was canceled and the publisher closed its doors, causing Trigun to end abruptly with only three volumes. However, later that same year, Nightow managed to get Trigun's story to continue in Young King OURs magazine, now titled "Trigun Maximum", and in 1998, the Trigun anime finally premiered, becoming a huge success overseas.

While publishing the new phase of the manga, Nightow also began working on the production of action figures, and together with Kaiyodo, founded "Toy Tribe" to create the "Trigun: The Planet Gun Smoke" action figure line. According to Nightow, the initial idea was to create an alternative story to the anime and manga, with a new plot and new characters. In 2002 at the Sega Game Jam, Sega announced a Trigun game for PS2 with the same name as the action figure line, which would be developed by Red Entertainment. Also during the same panel at the event, "Gungrave" was announced, with this being the newest and original project that Nightow was working on in parallel with the publication of Trigun Maximum. The Trigun game was later canceled without any explanation or reason. In 2003, with the Trigun Maximum manga entering its climax, Gungrave received an anime adaptation by Madhouse. The following year, in 2004, the game also got a sequel titled "Gungrave Overdose", with Nightow once again participating in the plot development and character creation. In 2010, Trigun was adapted into a movie titled "Trigun: Badlands Rumble" thanks to the anime's popularity in the West.

Nightow is an action figure collector, loves science fiction movies, and is passionate about American superhero comics, being extremely fond of Image Comics, Dark Horse, Marvel, and DC. His biggest inspirations are Katsuhiro Otomo, Fumiko Takano, Leiji Matsumoto, Geof Darrow, Todd McFarlane, and Mike Mignola. His favorite manga is Tensai Bakabon.