Shinobu Kaze

Shinobu Kaze, pen name of Tomoaki Saitō (2=斉藤智昭 is a Japanese mangaka.
His most well-known works, such as Ryu, Strongest Man on the Face of the Planet and Violence becomes Tranquility were influenced by French science fiction comics, such as Moebius and Philippe Druillet, as well as artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Seijun Suzuki and Tadanori Yokoo.

Biography

Saitō was born in Yokosuka. In high school he drew comics and met a colleague who knew manga artist Go Nagai. They went to Nagai's studio Dynamic Pro. After graduation, Saitō began working as Nagai's assistant, and adopted the name Kaze Shinobu. He began assisting Nagai in titles like Kikkai-kun and Gakuen Taikutsu Otoko; in 1971 he launched his own gag comic; Hyakuen Byōin ''.
In 1974 one of Dynamic Pro's assistants brought to the studio a copy of Philipee Druillet's comic Lone Sloane. Although he didn't read French, the artwork inspired Kaze to draw a martial arts action comic, infused with science-fiction and spiritual imagery. In 1976 he launched Ryu, Strongest Man on the Face of the Planet, serialized at Weekly Shonen Magazine. After that, Kaze published several one-shot comics, such as The Boy with a Government.45, Violence becomes Tranquility and Heart and Steel ; the latter ones were among the first original manga published in English into the US. Those one-shots were later recollected in the book Violence and Peace.''