Background
He was born in Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan, and now resides in Kyoto.
山田 章博
He was born in Kōchi, Kōchi Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in Japan, and now resides in Kyoto.
Yamada is known for delicate images reminiscent of suiboku and depiction of fantasy subjects. While he has created many manga, Yamada is widely known as a novel illustrator and as a character designer. As an illustrator his best known works are Fuyumi Ono"s Twelve Kingdoms series and Mizuno Ryo"s Record of Lodoss War.
His character design credits include concepts for the anime series RahXephon as well as a variety of video games.
He worked on concept design of the movie Shinobi: Heart Under Blade. Yamada"s character design credits for anime include RahXephon.
His work on video games includes Saiyuki: Journey West for PlayStation, various Might and Magic and Wizardry titles for the Personal Computer Engine, both entries to Mystic Ark, Enix"s role-playing video game for the Super Famicom and PlayStation and character designs for Shinkai Densetsu Meremanoid and Terra Phantastica. Yamada also worked on a game called Chaos Gear and a Personal Computer game, Black Rainbow.
Yamada"s designs can also be found in Castlevania: Dracula X for the Super NES and in Front Mission 3 for the PlayStation.
Yamada has produced many anime artbook compilations. Yamada drew the manga Record of Lodoss War: The Lady of Pharis in conjunction with writer Ryo Mizuno, and is currently working on an Asian-themed solo manga, Beast of East. Yamada attracted attention outside Japan through his illustrations of Fuyumi Ono"s long-running The Twelve Kingdoms light novel series.
He specially designed the rich cover illustrations for the home Digital Video Disc releases of the anime adaptation of this series.
Yamada is drawing covers that are exclusive to the English translation.