Hajime Isayama

Born August 29, 1986, Isayama grows up in Ōita Prefecture on the island of Kyushu. After high school in Hita he studies cartoon design at Kyushu Designer Gakuin, then moves to Tokyo to draw manga professionally. His 2006 one-shot version of Attack on Titan earns a Fine Work prize in Kodansha's Magazine Grand Prix. He first shows the project to Shueisha's Weekly Shōnen Jump, where editors advise reworking both style and story to fit the magazine; he declines and takes the manuscript to Kodansha's Weekly Shōnen Magazine department instead.

Two more one-shots follow. Heart Break One receives a Special Encouragement award at the 80th Weekly Shōnen Magazine Freshman Manga Award in 2008, and orz is chosen as a selected work at the 81st. Serialization of Attack on Titan begins in the monthly Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine in 2009, and in 2011 the series takes the 35th Kodansha Manga Award in the shōnen category. On the final day of 2018 he announces on his blog that he married during that year, denying rumors that named Yamamoto Arisa as his spouse and promising to keep drawing.

Attack on Titan, which ran from 2009 to 2021, stands as his only serialized series. His shorter catalog includes the original 2006 Attack on Titan one-shot, Heart Break One and orz from 2008, and two 2014 collaborations: Attack on Avengers, illustrated by Axel Alonso and Joe Quesada, and The Killing Pawn, drawn by Ryoji Minagawa. In 2024 he storyboarded The Theory of the Ill-Natured Man and AI, a one-shot conceived by voice actor Yūki Kaji and drawn by Kai Noshigami, and released the artbook Attack on Titan FLY.

Isayama's affections inside his own cast have shifted with the story. Jean held the top spot in 2012 and reclaimed it after the finale, Reiner owned it through the Marley era, and Historia also ranks among his favorites; he considers Daz the character most like himself and jokes that he matches the Garrison types who sit around drinking. Given the choice of a military branch, he would pick the Military Police purely to stay far from Titans. He rates Chapter 71 as the best in the series and calls Chapter 104's brawl between the Attack Titan and the Jaw Titan his favorite scene.

As a fan he is just as vocal. JoJo's Bizarre Adventure shaped his youth, and a 2016 binge of Game of Thrones turned him into an evangelist whose later chapters carry visible nods to the show, from Titans resembling its characters to a chapter titled after its Children of the Forest; the show's finale left him let down. For years his blog carried ranked lists of his favorite films, topped by picks such as The Wind Rises and Mad Max: Fury Road, and in a 2020 interview about his manga's approaching conclusion he admitted disappointment with the ending he had in store.