Born in Kōriyama, Fukushima Prefecture, Japan
Tsutomu Nihei has been working in manga since the mid-1990s. He won the Jiro Taniguchi Special Prize at the 1995 Afternoon Four Seasons Award for his submission Blame—which was actually his professional debut concept. After a stint assisting veteran artist Takahashi Tsutomu, he launched the official Blame! serialization in Monthly Afternoon in 1997, and it quickly became a cult classic. He's since worked on diverse projects including Wolverine: Snikt! for Marvel Comics and Biomega, but his biggest mainstream success came with Knights of Sidonia, which debuted in Afternoon in 2009.
What makes Nihei's style instantly recognizable is his background in architecture—his early work was largely wordless, letting intricate visuals and environments carry the narrative weight. His cyberpunk-influenced aesthetic has earned him a devoted international following, even as he remains relatively under-the-radar in mainstream discussions.
Content compiled by AnimeList.moe from publicly available sources.
