Akihiro Yamada | |
Native Name: | 山田 章博 |
Native Name Lang: | ja |
Birth Date: | February 10, 1957 |
Birth Place: | Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture, Japan |
Field: | Manga, illustration |
Awards: | 1996 Seiun Award |
Yamada was born on February 10, 1957, in Kōchi, Japan[2] and attended Kochi Nishi High School. He entered Osaka University to study economics and published his debut comic, Padan Padan (Japanese: ぱだんぱだん), in 1981 in the magazine Monthly OUT.[2] He published Mermaid Changer (Japanese: 人魚變生) the following year.[3] Prior to finishing his degree, he left university to pursue a career in illustration.[2]
Yamada has produced art and character design for a wide range of media, including manga, video games, novels, and anime.[4] Among his best known works are the art for Fuyumi Ono's The Twelve Kingdoms series and Mizuno Ryo's Record of Lodoss War.[2] He has worked on anime such as RahXephon[5] and the adaptation of The Twelve Kingdoms. He designed for PlayStation games and Front Mission 3
Yamada worked on concept design for the live-action film and was art director for Koga Ninjutsu. He has also created covers for English-to-Japanese translations, including for The Dark Tower by Stephen King.[2] Additionally, he did costume and set design for the theatre show GEAR. In 1996, he won the Seiun Award for Best Artist.[1] In the 2010s, he was a visiting professor in Kyoto Seika University's manga department.[6] [2] Yumi Tamura has cited Yamada's work as one of her inspirations.
Yadama's style is heavily influenced by Chinese gongbi and by the chivalry of medieval European artwork.[2] Phoenix Television pointed out that his work contains elements from Gustave Doré's print lines and Alphonse Mucha's "decorative images" and describes his style as combining European swords and magic and the "delicacy of Eastern culture." In 2018, Sohu echoed many of these sentiments and described him as having a "unique fantasy style... with delicate brushstrokes."[7]
Year(s) | Title | Character Design | Notes | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
2002-2003 | The Twelve Kingdoms | X* |
| [8] | |
2024 | Metallic Rogue | X | [9] |
Year | Title (English) | Title (Japanese) | Art | Writer | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1983-1989 | Tales from the Star World | Japanese: 星界物语三部曲 | X | Akihira Yamada | |||
1991 | Japanese: ファリスの聖女 | X | [10] | ||||
Tragedy of the Garden of Many Flowers | Japanese: 百花庭園の悲劇 | X | Akihiro Yamada | ||||
1992 | The Twelve Kingdoms series | Japanese: 十二国記 | X | ||||
1994 | Legend of Lodoss: Prince of the Fallen Land | Japanese: ロードス島伝説 亡国の王子 | X | ||||
2001-2007 | Dream Buster | Japanese: ドリームバスター | X | ||||
2011 | Beast of East: Eastern Vertigo | Japanese: 東方の獣 めまい | X | Akihiro Yamada | |||
1989-2014 | The Last Continent | Japanese: ラストコンチネント | X | ||||
2014 | Red Magic Detective Team | Japanese: 红色魔术侦探团 | X | ||||
1986-2017 | The Heroic Legend of Arslan | Japanese: アルスラーン戦 | X | ||||
2020 | The Lairs of the Secret Gods | Japanese: 秘神界 | X* | Ken Asamatsu (editor) |
| ||
2018-2021 | King of Fire Hunting | Japanese: 火狩りの王 | X | Rieko Hinata | [11] |
Year | Title (in English) | Title (in Japanese) | Console | Art | Character Design | Notes | Ref | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1990 | Black Rainbow | X | X | |||||
1992 | Black Rainbow II | X | X | |||||
1993 | X* |
| ||||||
Ancient Magic | Japanese: バズー!魔法世界 | X | X | |||||
Gaiapolis | Japanese: ガイアポリス: 黄金鷹の剣 | Promotional Art | ||||||
Wizardry I・II | Japanese: 謎の地下遺跡 | X | ||||||
Japanese: 悪魔城ドラキュラX 血の輪廻ロンド | X | X | ||||||
1994 | Wizardry III・IV | X | ||||||
1994/1995 | Kingdom Grandprix | Japanese: 疾風魔法大作戦 | X* | X |
| |||
1995 | Mystic Ark | Japanese: ミスティックアーク | X | X | [12] | |||
Japanese: 悪魔城ドラキュラXX | X | X | ||||||
1996 | Terra Phantastica | X | X | |||||
1997 | Milandra | X | ||||||
1999 | Front Mission 3 | Japanese: フロントミッション サード | X | |||||
Mystic Ark: Maboroshi Gekijo | Japanese: まぼろし劇場 | X | X | |||||
Meremanoid | Japanese: 深海伝説MEREMANOID | X | X | |||||
Japanese: 西遊記 | X | X | ||||||
2014 | VANITY of VANITIES | 《VANITY of VANITIES》 | X | |||||
2009/2010 | Heroes of Three Kingdoms | Japanese: 三国群侠传 | X | X | ||||
2017 | Fire Emblem Heroes | Japanese: ファイアーエムブレム ヒーローズ | X* |