Hajime Isayama

About

Hajime Isayama (Japanese: 諫山 創, Hepburn: Isayama Hajime; born August 29, 1986) is a Japanese manga artist. His first series, Attack on Titan (2009–2021), became one of the best-selling manga series of all time with 140 million copies in circulation as of November 2023. He was awarded the Kodansha Manga Award in 2011, a Harvey Award in 2014, and was honored with the Fauve Spécial award at the 50th Angoulême International Comics Festival in 2023.

== Early life and career ==
Isayama was born in Ōyama, Ōita Prefecture, Japan, which is now part of Hita City. He was attending Hita Rinko Senior High School when he began submitting manga works to contests. After graduating, he matriculated in the manga design program of the arts department at Kyushu Designer Gakuen. In 2006, he applied for the Magazine Grand Prix known as MGP promoted by Kodansha Ltd. and a short version of Attack on Titan (Shingeki no Kyojin) was given the “Fine Work” award. This one-shot would later be included with the first Blu-ray of the anime adaptation. At age twenty, he moved to Tokyo and worked at an Internet café in order to pursue a career in writing manga.
Originally, he offered his work to the Weekly Shōnen Jump…