Minekura Kazuya

Kazuya Minekura (峰倉かずや) is a Japanese manga artist most known for the Saiyuki series. Her other manga series include Wild Adapter, Shiritsu Araiso Koto Gakko Seitokai Shikkobu (Araiso Private School Student Council Executive Committee), and Stigma. Stigma is notable for being a full-color work, which is unusual for manga is generally drawn in black and white.

She had an illness that affected her writing from 2004–2007, which caused her to undergo hysterectomy. On 28 September 2010, she went on hiatus to undergo surgery for ameloblastoma on the right half of her upper jawbone. On 31 December 2010, she reported her surgery was successful after removing the tumor on her right upper jawbone and soon after was fitted with artificial prosthetics to reconstruct the area where her bones were removed.

Minekura never puts a real photo of herself in her Artist's Talk section. Instead, she draws herself as a naked chibi figure with a brown hair (either pulled back to a ponytail or with bangs covering half of its face).

A list of her early works, prior to 1997, can be found in Minekura Doujin.

Works

 * Saiyuki Ibun (Status: Went on hiatus to give way for Wild Adapter)
 * Saiyuki(1997-2002)
 * Saiyuki Reload (2002-2009)
 * Saiyuki Reload Blast(2009-Ongoing)
 * Saiyuki Gaiden (1999-2009)
 * Wild Adapter
 * Just!
 * Stigma
 * Brother
 * Diorama (ヅオラマ)
 * Bus Gamer
 * Shiritsu Araiso Koto Gakko Seitokai Shikkobu (Araiso Private High School Student Council Executive Committee)
 * Hachi no Su

Blog

 * Click me!

Trivia

 * Kazuya Minekura is a pen name.
 * Her real first name is Hitomi and her family name starts with the letter A.
 * She lives in Kanagawa Prefecture.
 * Her favorite brand of cigarette is CABIN super mild.
 * Her favorite food is fried chicken cooked by her mother.
 * She has a younger brother.
 * She gets married the same day/month of her birthday on 2008 (aged 33) with a guy she knows since high school.
 * She has a dog named Kurosawa that lives at her parents' house.
 * She was unlucky with health issues. On 2007 she had a surgery to take off her womb and on 2010 she had another surgery to take off an ameloblastoma
 * She also write songs. One of the few songs she wrote is Late show sung by Garden that was use as the opening theme song of Saiyuki Burial and Esoragoto that belongs to the Wild Execution album of Wild Adapter sung by Toshiyuki Morikawa and Hideo Ishikawa. She was also the composer behind the Bus Gamer opening song entitled "No Name" by Team AAA (seiyuus were Kenichi Suzumura, Junichi Suwabe and Hiroki Takahashi) and the ending theme "Train" which were sung individually by the three seiyuus.
 * During a tsunami that strucks Japan in 2011, she was one of a few manga artist who gave donations by means of selling her works with her official signatures on it.