Hiroshi HirataHiroshi Hirata.

Hiroshi Hirata (平田 弘史, Hirata Hiroshi; February 9, 1937, December 11, 2021) was a Japanese manga artist best known in the United States for the samurai manga series Satsuma Gishiden, which is published in the United States by Dark Horse Comics. Hirata's works belong to the subset of manga known as "gekiga" ("dramatic pictures"), and his artwork has a realistic style comparable to Goseki Kojima's work on Lone Wolf and Cub. He was also known for his use of elaborate calligraphy for dialogue (he did the kanji for Akira), which has been preserved (though still translated) in the American editions of his work.