Yoshitoshi ABe

Yoshitoshi ABe (あべ よしとし ) or 安倍 吉俊 ), born August 3, 1971, is a Japanese graphic artist who works predominantly in anime and manga. He is responsible for the concept and character design for the planned project Despera for which he illustrated the graphic novel.

He is a colleague and friend of Chiaki J. Konaka, with whom he collaborated on the series Serial Experiments Lain and Texhnolyze.

Biography
Under his father's influence, as a kid, he was aimed to become a Shogi player. His father, named Yoshiteru Abe, and his sister were also a shogi player.

In sixth grade of elementary school, he discovered programming through a PC-6000. When in High School, Yoshitoshi participated to an anime group where he helped with film-making. At 19, he entered Yoyogi Animation School where he learn how to paint despite always using a pencil before when drawing.

Abe Yoshitoshi first began his career as a teen in Tokyo who was first recognized as a graffiti artist, who regularly got into legal problems with his art. His concepts for all his later works are said to be inspired by this time of his life and has projected a dark theme into his anime character designs.

In the early 90's, he published his own illustrations on Internet, and started to receive art request. At the same time, he participated in "Mutekei Fire", a doujinshi co-authored with a writer I met online.

He first gained fame in his work on the avant-garde anime Serial Experiments Lain. He is also responsible for the concept and character design for the series NieA_7. He is the creator of the dōjinshi Haibane Renmei, which was also adapted into an anime.

On November 11, 2011, ABe married artist Sasaki Yukari, his manga assistant since 2010. Their daughter was born on September 21, 2012.

Trivia

 * He usually uses the romaji form of his name instead of the kanji, with the "B" in "ABe" capitalized, as a reminder of his early works, for which he used the pen name "AB".
 * He is known to be a fairly tech-savvy manga artist, drawing a sketch with just his finger and an application on an iPad.

Link

 * Official Website (archived)
 * Youtube Channel
 * Yoshitoshi ABe on Code Art Studio - contains links to some of his early works (site in Russian)