Takato Yamamoto

Birth Place: Akita Prefecture, Japan

Takato Yamamoto is a Japanese Illustrator/Artist working in a (slightly sinister and beatifully grotesque) "Ukiyoe-Pop" style. He developed a style called "Heisei Esthiticism", drawing on both Japanese historical art and homoerotic imagery.

Takato Yamamoto has been active as a professional illustrator since 1983. His exquisite, fine link ink drawings descend from 1930s youth magazine illustrations, adapting its world of sensual youths to a context of erotic decadence. Since 1996, he has illustrated numerous works of erotic, historical, and fantasy fiction. Many collections of his art have been published. The story anthologized in the English publication of AX Alternative is his only manga to date. He explores themes of darkness, bondage, vampires, metamorphosis, love and death. The perspective is always calm and serene - never depicting violence - rather, it is impending or just completed. Takato Yamamoto usually works with acrylic paint on paper and sometimes on canvas.

(Source: Manga Updates)