Overview
Hiro Mashima (真島 ヒロ, Mashima Hiro), born on May 3, 1977 in Nagano, Japan is a Japanese manga artist that often draws in a fantasy world of swords and magic. His influences comes from Akira Toriyama and Hiroshi Tanaka. The main characters in his serialized manga works are commonly named after seasons.
His name is not his real name but his pen name, being a combination of The Blue Hearts band members Masatoshi Mashima and Hiroto Komoto.
In 2012, he established an official Twitter account, and the art posted there are so popular that a book compiling them has been published.
On June 3, 2022, he opened a YouTube channel to celebrate the 25th anniversary of his debut. He uploads videos of drawing distribution, manga lectures, etc.
He and Eiichiro Oda, who serializes One Piece in Weekly Shonen Jump, are very similar in terms of drawing style, quick writing, and responses to fans in the books that it lead to rumors on the internet that they may actually be the same person. The two are sometimes mentioned on the internet as the same person.
