Hideaki Sorachi was born May 25, 1979. He's a Japanese manga artist best known for creating Gintama, the long-running sci-fi comedy that made him famous.

Sorachi got interested in manga early on, but a discouraging moment in fourth grade—when his father laughed at his drawings—made him drop the idea for years. After struggling to find regular work post-graduation, he circled back to manga, which he'd picked up during university. His first series, Dandylion, gave him some initial recognition and actually appeared as a bonus in the first volume of Gintama, complete with a foreword from Sorachi himself.

The origin of Gintama is pretty funny. In 2003, his editor pushed him to create something tied to a new Shinsengumi TV drama set to air the following year. Sorachi's actual pitch was basically "Harry Potter but with demon slayers at a school." After some back-and-forth and a failed attempt to actually write the Shinsengumi angle, he abandoned the whole thing, salvaged what he had, and twisted it into the pseudo-historical sci-fi comedy that became Gintama instead.

Sorachi studied commercial advertising in college, which honestly shows in his eye for visual gags and character design.