Tsutomu Nihei (弐瓶 勉) is a Japanese manga artist. Nihei has been drawing comics professionally since the mid-1990s. In 1995 he was awarded the Jiro Taniguchi Special Prize in that year's Afternoon Four Seasons Award for his submission, Blame. After working as an assistant to veteran comic artist Tsutomu Takahashi, Nihei went on to launch his debut series Blame! in Monthly Afternoon in 1997. Following the success of Blame!, he next penned Wolverine: Snikt! (published by Marvel Comics) and Biomega. In 2009, Nihei returned to Afternoon to launch what would become his most successful series, Knights of Sidonia. An architectural student, Nihei's early work were mainly wordless, relying on visuals and backgrounds to tell their stories. His cyberpunk-influenced artwork has gained a strong cult following worldwide.

Career

Nihei worked in construction but quit to work on becoming a manga artist. He went to New York and studied at the Parsons School of Design. His experience in construction and design has shown up in his manga in his depiction of huge structures which are a strong theme in his manga works. Nihei has several sources of inspiration, including manga, American comics and bandes dessinées. Japanese comics that strongly influenced him include Akira, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Ghost in the Shell. He was also enormously inspired by Swiss artist H. R. Giger, best known for his airbrush images of humans and machines connected in cold biomechanical relationships. Other sources of inspirations include Hard science fiction novels, Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, French artist Mœbius and Clive Barker of Hellraiser fame. Nihei is also a big video games fan, and mentioned Metroid and the Halo franchise among his favorites. In the mid-2000s, during a trip to the United States, he met the Halo design team, who directly offered him to participate in The Halo Graphic Novel project when they found out that he was a huge fan of the game. Nihei designed the logo for the record label Lingua Sounda, formed in 2011 by the rock band Buck-Tick. He was a special guest of San Diego Comic-Con in July 2016. He also received an Inkpot Award from Comic-Con International, the organization that runs San Diego Comic-Con and WonderCon. Given to creators for “contributions to the worlds of comics, science fiction/fantasy, film, television, animation, and fandom services,” the Inkpot Award is an honor that Nihei now shares with other comics, film, and sci-fi legends such as Osamu Tezuka, Mœbius, and Ray Bradbury. In 2024, Nihei created the Font "Toa heavy industries" in partnership with Iwata Corporation.

Works

Serialized works

One-shots and additional works

Artbooks

Accolades