is a Japanese manga artist

Mangaka

is the Japanese word for a comic artist or cartoonist. Outside of Japan, manga usually refers to a Japanese comic book and mangaka refers to the author of the manga, who is usually Japanese...

 born in Nagoya, in Aichi Prefecture

Aichi Prefecture

is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region. The region of Aichi is also known as the Tōkai region. The capital is Nagoya. It is the focus of the Chūkyō Metropolitan Area.- History :...

. He is known for his work on the manga

Manga

Manga is the Japanese word for "comics" and consists of comics and print cartoons . In the West, the term "manga" has been appropriated to refer specifically to comics created in Japan, or by Japanese authors, in the Japanese language and conforming to the style developed in Japan in the late 19th...

 series Geobreeders

Geobreeders

is a manga series by Akihiro Ito. Two anime OVAs were also produced to tell part of the story, with "Kitty" taking place during the timeline between volumes 5 and 6 of the manga, and "Breakthrough" acting as an introduction to volume 8...

, serialized in the monthly manga magazine Young King Ours

Young King OURs

is a monthly seinen manga magazine published in Japan by Shōnen Gahosha, aimed primarily at male audiences, mostly older teens and young adults. It is the sister publication of Young King...

. Ito also worked on a second manga series, Wilderness, which was serialized in Sunday GX

Sunday GX

, often abbreviated as , is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Shogakukan.Like many other manga magazines, it's an "anthology magazine" with each issue featuring new chapters of several manga series...

. Both titles have been on hiatus since 2009 when Itou reportedly stopped working due to an undisclosed illness. Currently, there are only 7 volumes available in the Wilderness series, and 16 volumes for Geobreeders. Itou did attempt to start Geobreeders Part 3, with the first three chapters appearing in Young King Ours between June and August. These chapters, and the remaining chapters for Wilderness have not yet been published in collected form.

Akihiro first wrote under the pen name BREN303, named after the Bren

Bren

The Bren, usually called the Bren Gun, was a series of light machine guns adopted by Britain in the 1930s and used in various roles until 1991...

 light machine gun. His earliest stories appeared in etchi magazines like Lemon People

Lemon People

was a sexploitation hentai manga magazine published by Kubo Shoten from 1981 to 1998 in Japan. The first issue had some gravure idol photographs, but the format of the magazine quickly switched to all manga by the eighth issue....

. Several of these stories were later collected as Take the B Studio, and Take the B Studio - Complete.

Little is available on Akihiro's personal life in print. He did conduct something of an interview with Isamu Imakake, when Isamu was preparing to draw the Geobreeders Atomic Attack side story. An edited transcript of this interview appeared at the end of the AA manga. During which, Itou was quoted as saying: that he draws the Honda Vamos

Honda Vamos

The Honda Vamos was a Mini SUV leisure vehicle originally produced by Japanese automaker Honda from 1970 to 1973, and reintroduced again as a trim level of the Honda Acty microvan starting in 1999. Its name, "Vamos", is Spanish for "let's go".-1970-1973:...

 because it's easily recognizable, and that he can't draw vehicles with curved lines; that he's not really a gun nut or a military enthusiast - he just likes pictures of gun fights; and that the reason he draws cars in such great detail is that some of his fans demand it.

Works

• Wilderness, (Shogakukan)
• Geobreeders
  Geobreeders
  is a manga series by Akihiro Ito. Two anime OVAs were also produced to tell part of the story, with "Kitty" taking place during the timeline between volumes 5 and 6 of the manga, and "Breakthrough" acting as an introduction to volume 8...
  
  , (Shōnen Gahosha)
• Gallop, (Daitosha), short story collection, written as BREN303
• Blue Gale, (Daitosha), giant robot short story collection
• Belle Starr, (Kadokawa), three volumes
  • Loosely based on the life of Belle Starr
    Belle Starr
    Myra Maybelle Shirley Reed Starr , better known as Belle Starr, was a notorious American outlaw.-Early life:...
    
    .
• Lawman, (Hakusensha), one volume
• Take the B Studio, (Koboshoten), collection of short stories written under the name BREN303
• Take the B Studio - Complete (Shōnen Gahousha), reprinting of Take the B Studio
• Battle Girl, (Tokumashoten), one volume