Baku Yumemakura (夢枕 獏) is a Japanese science fiction and adventure writer. His works have sold more than 20 million copies in Japan spread across more than 280 titles and adapted into a variety of formats including feature films, television shows, movies and comic books. His works are influenced by outdoor interests such as fishing, particularly Ayu fishing, mountain climbing, canoeing as well as manga, photography, pottery, art, calligraphy, martial arts. He has published a number of photo collections of his journeys through Nepalese mountains. He is best known for writing Jōgen no Tsuki wo Taberu Shishi (The Lion that Ate the Crescent Moon), which won both the Seiun Award and the Nihon SF Taisho Award. He also has written film scripts, including the one to Onmyōji. One of his popular martial arts serials that has been adapted into manga is Garōden (餓狼伝), which has also been adapted to two video games and a movie. He's been nicknamed "the artisan of violence" due to one of his popular martial arts novel series, Shishi no Mon (獅子の門). As of 2014, he has been working on the scripts for the manga series Shin Garōden with renowned manga artist Masami Nobe. He is also a past president of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan organization.

Early life

Baku Yumemakura was born on January 1, 1951, in Odawara-shi. At the age of 22, he graduated from Tokai University with a degree in Japanese literature. In 1975, he visited Nepal for the first time; the region would become host to one of his most popular works, The Summit of the Gods, which was adapted into the French animated film Le Sommet des Dieux in 2021.

Career beginnings

In 1977, his first works were published in the science fiction coterie magazines Neo Null (curated by Yasutaka Tsutsui) and Uchūjin (curated by Takumi Shibano). A typographic experiment story titled Kaeru no Shi, dubbed as "Typografiction", was published in Neo Null and received a great deal of attention within the industry; it was reprinted in the science fiction magazine Kisou Tengai, which became his first appearance in commercial magazine. He followed this success by releasing the novella Kyojin Den and enjoyed enough success to become a full-time author. His first standalone title, Nekohiki no Oruorane, was published in the Shueisha Cobalt Collection in 1979. His first full-length novel, Genjū Henge, was published two years later by Futabasha Corporation. Then, in 1982, the first volume of the Kimaira Kou Series, Genjū Shōnen Kimaira, was published by Asahi Sonorama Paperbacks, with cover and illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano. The Majūgari trilogy was published by Shodensha in 1984.

Collaborators

Over the span of his career, Yumemakura worked with a wide range of historically important figures in the Japanese art scene.

Translated works

Works in print in Japanese

The following works have been released in Japan.