Yura Urushibara

Yura Urushibara is a Japanese manga artist, the creator of Tougen Anki, one of the titles that has kept Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion in the conversation since 2020. Born in 1990, he works out of Matsumoto in Nagano Prefecture, well outside the Tokyo manga bubble, and has built a reputation as a creator who lets the pages do the introducing.

The series has grown into a genuine multi-platform property. By July 2026 the manga had passed six million copies in circulation, and the anime adaptation that premiered in July 2025 returned for a second season, the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc, on October 2, 2026. Yen Press publishes the English edition under the subtitle Legend of the Cursed Blood, and volumes have kept arriving through 2026.

What sets Urushibara apart in fan circles is partly the work and partly the persona: he draws himself as a hippo in author portraits, a small running joke that has become his most recognizable public image. He rarely gives interviews and has never shown his face publicly, which only sharpens curiosity around him. For readers, Tougen Anki is the whole story so far, and it has been enough to turn a 2020 debut into a franchise. [edit]

Details about Urushibara's childhood and schooling are thin on the ground. He was born in 1990, and his birthday is listed as May 3, though the year is rarely printed alongside it in the usual manga databases. He grew up and still lives in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, a castle town in the Japanese Alps rather than a Tokyo suburb, and that geography has shaped how he works: quietly, at a remove from the publishing industry's center of gravity.

Before Tougen Anki, there was a long stretch of preparation that fans mostly know about through the finished pages. Fight choreography, character design, and the discipline of weekly pacing are all things the series does well, and none of them arrive fully formed. The conventional path for a manga hopeful is a run of one-shots and contest entries, and while Urushibara has not discussed that period in detail, the polish of the debut suggests years of work behind it.

His author self-portrait, a hippo rather than a human figure, dates from this era of building a public identity on his own terms. It is the kind of choice a creator makes when he would rather be known for the work than the face. The hippo has followed him into every volume and promotional appearance since.

The moment just before the breakthrough came in 2020, when Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion picked up the series for serialization. That was the line between years of unseen preparation and the career that exists today. [edit]

Tougen Anki launched in Weekly Shonen Champion in 2020 as Urushibara's first serialized work. The premise, a young man who learns he carries oni blood and is pulled into the old war between demons and the Momotaro demon hunters, gave the magazine something it did not have elsewhere in its lineup: a folklore-driven action series with a protagonist split between two inherited identities.

The manga built readership steadily through its first years. Yen Press began the English release in September 2024, with Volume 1 arriving that month and the series continuing under the subtitle Legend of the Cursed Blood. An anime adaptation was announced in May 2024, and the show premiered on July 11, 2025, bringing the series to a much larger international audience. Urushibara gave an interview at Anime Expo in Los Angeles around that time, acknowledging how far the series had traveled.

The commercial numbers followed. In July 2026, the manga passed six million copies in circulation. A second anime season, adapting the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc, was announced in late 2025 and premiered on October 2, 2026, with an expanded cast that includes the Oni Brigade. Merchandise lines arrived alongside it, including a Kaiju Works Scene Shot Collection in October 2026. The manga itself remains in serialization, and Yen Press has kept English volumes coming through 2026. [edit]

The public image is built almost entirely on absence. Urushibara does not show his face, rarely gives interviews, and lets the manga carry the conversation. In place of a author photo, there is the hippo, a self-portrait that has become more recognizable than most manga artists' actual faces. The effect is a creator who feels present in his work and remote everywhere else, which suits a series about inherited identity and hidden bloodlines.

His distance from Tokyo reinforces the impression. Matsumoto is a real place with a real pace, and the choice to stay there reads as a statement about how he wants to work, even if he has never framed it that way publicly. In interviews he has been brief and gracious, most notably at Anime Expo, where he acknowledged the overseas audience without making a spectacle of himself. The overall persona is quiet, wry, and slightly mysterious, with the hippo doing most of the talking. [edit]

iFANN has not yet collected fame data for Yura Urushibara, so there is no ranking to report here. He is not on the September 2026 iFAMOUS Rankings flagship list either, which is unsurprising for a manga artist who keeps his profile deliberately low.

What fame he has runs through the work. Tougen Anki passed six million copies in circulation by July 2026, and the anime's second season, the Nikko Kegon Falls Arc, premiered on October 2, 2026, which means the audience is growing faster than the creator's public footprint. The fanbase does not have a formal name. It is a loose, international group that gathers around the series rather than the man: readers of the Yen Press English editions, viewers who came in through the 2025 anime, and the Japanese Weekly Shonen Champion regulars who have been there since 2020.

Fan activity tends to be creative rather than organized. Instagram and YouTube carry a steady stream of anime edit reels and spotlight videos, and the series' official X account, @tougenanki, is where announcements land. There are no documented streaming campaigns or birthday billboards, and Urushibara does not engage much on social media himself. The relationship is simple: he makes the manga, they read and watch it, and the hippo portrait is the closest thing to a personal signature either side has. [edit]

Urushibara draws himself as a hippo in author portraits, and the gag has stuck for the entire run of the series. It is the closest most fans have come to seeing his face.

He lives in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, rather than Tokyo, which is unusual for a weekly shonen author and means his workday looks different from the industry norm.

A fan TikTok has circulated the claim that he is a fan of boys' love manga. It is fan-reported rather than something he has said himself, so treat it as lore rather than fact.

The title Tougen Anki translates roughly to Paradise Dark Demon, which gives English readers a sense of the folklore register the series works in. Yen Press chose Legend of the Cursed Blood as the English subtitle.

One persistent search query around him is simply Yura Urushibara face. He has never shown it, and the hippo is the answer he has given instead. [edit]

Urushibara has kept his family entirely out of the public record. No parents, siblings, spouse, or children are documented in any reliable source, and he has not discussed his home life in interviews. What is known is that he lives and works in Matsumoto, Nagano Prefecture, and that his author persona, the hippo, stands in for any personal detail he might otherwise share. Fans searching for a wife or family will not find one confirmed anywhere, and the silence appears to be deliberate. [edit]

Urushibara's career is tied to Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion, the magazine that has serialized Tougen Anki since 2020, and to Yen Press, which publishes the English edition. The anime adaptation brought in a production committee and cast that expanded the franchise's reach, including the Oni Brigade cast introduced for the second season. Beyond those institutional relationships, he has kept his professional circle private. [edit]

No public romantic relationship has ever been documented for Urushibara. Searches for a wife or partner are common enough that they show up as suggested queries, but no credible source names a spouse, a girlfriend, or a dating history. He has not discussed his personal life in interviews, and the absence appears to be deliberate rather than a gap in reporting. As of 2026, the public record shows him as private, with no confirmed relationship and no publicly known children. [edit]

There is no reliable public net worth figure for Yura Urushibara. Celebrity finance outlets do not cover him, and no outlet has published an estimate, so any number should be read as a rough editorial calculation rather than a reported fact. The iFANN Editorial Team's analysis of his likely earnings, based on the scale of the franchise, points to roughly $2.4 million in 2026, driven almost entirely by Tougen Anki.

The income streams are the standard ones for a hit manga artist. Manga royalties on tankobon sales form the base. With six million copies in circulation as of 2026, the cumulative royalty pool is meaningful, though Japanese publishing contracts split it in ways that keep individual payouts modest compared with Western licensing. Anime licensing fees and the merchandising that follows a successful adaptation add a second layer, and the second season premiering in October 2026 extends that revenue cycle. Yen Press's English editions generate royalties on overseas sales.

What is not known is how much of that reaches him personally. Weekly serialization pays per page, and the volume royalties depend on contract terms that are not public. He has no documented side businesses, endorsements, or investments. The estimate is best treated as a marker of the franchise's scale rather than a precise accounting of his finances. [edit]