Yoshitoshi ABe Information

Artist / Writer
Japan

Biography:
Yoshitoshi ABe is a Japanese graphic artist who works predominantly in anime and manga. He first gained fame in his work as a character designer on the avant-garde anime Serial Experiments Lain. He is also responsible for the concept and character design for the series NieA_7. He is the creator of the dōjinshi Haibane Renmei, which was also adapted into an anime.

He is a colleague and friend of Chiaki J. Konaka, with whom he collaborated on the series Serial Experiments Lain and Texhnolyze. He usually uses the romaji form of his name instead of the kanji, with the "B" in "ABe" capitalized, as a reminder of his early works, for which he used the pen name "AB".

ABe Yoshitoshi first began his career as a teen in Tokyo who was first recognized as a graffiti artist, who regularly got into legal problems with his art. His concepts for all his later works are said to be inspired by this time of his life and has projected a dark theme into his anime character designs.