Behind every great manga series is an artist, or mangaka, who more often than not opts to hide their face and let their work speak for itself. In print, readers will spot their presence in playful author blurbs tucked inside volumes or the prefaces of their new chapters in weekly magazines like Shonen Jump, where artists like Eiichiro Oda write bite-sized anecdotes about their week, accompanied by a quirky caricature of themselves. However, when the spotlight of their work demands more exposure—be it a fan event or a press interview tied to their anime—many mangaka go to impressive lengths to conceal their faces.
Contrary to the fame-forward culture of Western “auteurs,” where directors gladly bask in the limelight during press tours, many mangaka choose to keep a low profile for a simple reason: they like their privacy. Between toxic fandom backlash, culture war dogpiling, online threats over creative choices, and death threats, keeping their face out of public view isn’t vanity, it’s protection. When the industry already blurs the line between work life and private life, that boundary becomes essential.
On the other hand, it’s also amusing when a creator like Nier: Automata director Yoko Taro’s career, which has leaned into anonymity, leads to improvising a new disguise after he lost his titular mask at Anime Expo 2023. Who doesn’t love a good disguise? In the spirit of that, here’s my top five favorite mangaka disguises. Honorable mention goes to Witch Hat Atelier creator Kamome Shirahama, who, during a virtual interview for her anime adaptation, sent over a headshot so absurdly charming it had me doubled over laughing.
Dandadan’s Yukinobu Tatsu
As a creator who got his start as an assistant to mangaka like Chainsaw Man creator Tatsuki Fujimoto’s Fire Punch and fellow assistant Yuji Kaku’s Hell’s Paradise: Jigokuraku, Yukinobu Tatsu’s series Dandadan quickly strapped a rocket to his back, propelling him into the mainstream. Instead of opting for one of his characters to digitally stand in for himself, as Fujimoto does with Pochita, Tatsu’s disguise is both puzzling and provocative. It’s just a mask with eggs and sausages on its face. I’ve no clue what compelled him to make a Purge-adjacent breakfast mask his visage, but I can’t fault him for choosing a disguise that gets me in the mood for a Denny’s Grand Slam whenever I see him make a video appearance to promote Dandadan’s anime.
Fullmetal Alchemist’s Hiromu Arakawa
Hiromu Arakawa is, without exaggeration, one of the greatest mangaka to ever do it. She’s the mind behind Fullmetal Alchemist, a series whose anime adaptation is often considered the gold standard thanks to its tight plotting, emotionally resonant characters (especially its women), sharp political themes, and side-splitting moments of levity. Despite being a goat, Arakawa, ever the unapologetic farm girl, fully leans into her roots in the most charming way possible: disguising herself as a bespectacled cow. Whether it’s her author’s headshot or her face superimposed in video interviews, she always appears as a bookish bovine. It’s funny, it’s adorable, and it makes her long-running milk agenda in FMA—where she insists Ed could’ve outgrown his short king phase with a proper calcium intake—all the more iconic.
Jujutsu Kaisen’s Gege Akutami
Before the Jujutsu Kaisen fandom went full nutso mode over how the story wrapped up—raging about character deaths, narrative choices, and backseat quarterbacking over how they would’ve written it—Gege Akutami was already well acquainted with the dark side of success. Few modern mangaka have endured the level of fan backlash Akutami has, all for creating one of today’s most popular shonen series.
Long before the firestorm, though, Akutami leaned into anonymity early in the most on-brand way possible: showing up to interviews in full Mechamaru cosplay. Akutami’s disguise isn’t just clever, it’s a perfect meta nod. The cyborg character remotely operates the automaton from the safe refuge of his hidden base. Not even his allies know what his real face looks like. Akutami also gets bonus points for his commitment to the disguise. That papier-mache mech head looks sweaty and uncomfortable to sit in for any period of time.
The Apothecary Diaries’ Natsu Hyuga
Like Akutami, The Apothecary Diaries light novel author Natsu Hyuga takes a full-body approach to her public appearance disguise. Instead of taking on the appearance of one of her characters, Hyuga’s disguise goes the route of an anthropomorphic mascot with Uririn, a wild boar piglet who waddles around whenever she’s making a public appearance. Though judging by her social media, her disguise might as well be how she walks through life, because her Twitter account is littered with candid images of her in disguise lounging on sofas, imbibing, and gaming.
Beastars’ Paru Itagaki
Just when you think being the daughter of Baki The Grappler author Keisuke Itagaki couldn’t make you any cooler, Beastars creator Paru Itagaki ups the ante with a chicken head. Not just any chicken, mind you, but Legom, the leghorn from her series, who takes pride in providing the sustenance for protagonist Legoshi’s balanced breakfast. There’s something wonderfully unbothered about a woman who’s written some of the boldest, most emotionally tangled manga out there showing up to interviews in a chicken mask. It’s surreal, playful, and perfectly in sync with the furry-adjacent genre-bending energy that makes her works tick.
