is a Japanese manga artist. He is best known for co-creating the post-apocalyptic martial arts series Fist of the North Star (1983–1988) with writer Buronson, which is one of the best-selling manga in history with over 100 million copies in circulation.
Early life
Although born in Tokyo, Hara lived in Matsubara-danchi in Sōka, Saitama. He is a cousin of comedian Ryo Fukawa. Hara began drawing characters from Osamu Tezuka's Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor Leo, as well as Ikki Kajiwara and Naoki Tsuji's Tiger Mask in first and second grade. In third and fourth grade he was obsessed with Shotaro Ishinomori's Kamen Rider manga, while the work of Fujio Akatsuka showed him how diverse the medium could be. Hara began working as an assistant to Yoshihiro Takahashi and enrolled in Gekiga Sonjuku, a manga school founded by Kazuo Koike, in 1981. He published several one-shots in 1982; "Mad Fighter" published in Fresh Jump in August, "Crash Hero" published in Weekly Shōnen Jump, and the boxing story "Super Challenger", which won first place at the 33rd Fresh Jump Prize. His next long-running serial was Keiji, a period piece published in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 1990 to 1993 and loosely based on a novel by Keiichiro Ryu. It was through Kazuhiko Torishima that Hara received the offer from Capcom to create the character designs for the 1993 video game Saturday Night Slam Masters. In 2021, Hara said that rather than creating work on his own, he was more interested in working with younger artists to create works as a team and pass on his forty years of experience.
| Written by Keiichiro Ryu, script by Shō Aikawa
| Weekly Shōnen Jump
| 1994–1995
| 6
|-
|
|
| Weekly Shōnen Jump
| 1995
| 3
|-
|
| Written by Keiichiro Ryu, screenplay by Shingo Futahashi
| Monthly Shōnen Jump
| 1997–2000
| 6
|-
|
| Written by Tadashi Ikuta
| Manga Allman
| 1997–1998
| 1
|-
|
| Supervised by Makoto Sataka
|Bart 3230
| 1998–2000
| 2
|-
|
| Written by Katsuhiko Takahashi
| Monthly Gotta
| 2000
|1
|-
|
| Supervised by Buronson
| Weekly Comic Bunch
| 2001–2010
|22
|-
|
| Written by Seibo Kitahara
| Monthly Comic Zenon
| 2010–2022
|20
|}
One-shots
{| class="wikitable"
|-
! Title
! Co-creator(s)
! Magazine
! Date
|-
|
|
| Weekly Jump: Special Edition
| 1982/4/10
|-
|
|
| Fresh Jump
| 1982/08
|-
|
| Original concept by Tetsuyuki Akuzawa
| Weekly Jump
| 1982 (No. 43)
|-
| (prototype version)
|
| Fresh Jump
| 1983/04
|-
| (prototype version)
|
| Fresh Jump
| 1983/06
|-
|
| Written by Arimasa Osawa
| Weekly Jump
| 1993 (No. 5-6)
|-
|
|
| Weekly Jump Spring Special
| 1995
|-
|
|
| Weekly Jump
| 1996 (No. 43)
|-
|
| Written by Buronson
| Manga Allman
| 1997 (No. 2)
|-
|
| Written by Buronson
| Comic Zenon
| May 2013 (Part 1)<br />June 2013 (Part 2)
|}
Novel illustrations
- Kōryū no Mimi - (2 volumes, 1991–1993)
- Ichimu An Fūryū Ki (1 volume, 1992 Shueisha Bunko edition)
- Hokuto no Ken: Jubaku no Machi (1 volume, 1995)
- Miyamoto Musashi (8 volumes, 2013 Takarashimasha Bunko edition)
Other works
- Saturday Night Slam Masters/Muscle Bomber (1993 arcade game) - promotional illustrations. The character portraits in the arcade version were done by another artist, but they were replaced by Hara's own renditions in the console versions for the Super NES and Sega Genesis.
- Muscle Bomber Duo (1993 arcade game) - promotional illustrations
- Ring of Destruction: Slam Masters II/Super Muscle Bomber (1994 arcade game) - promotional and in-game illustrations.
- Itadaki Muscle! (2006 TV series) - illustrations for the opening intro.
- Mori no Senshi Bonolon (2006 anime series) - producer, character designer
- Gifū Dōdō!! Naoe Kanetsugu -Maeda Keiji Tsuki-gatari- (2008–2010 manga series) - co-author with Nobuhiko Horie, illustrated by Yuji Takemura
- Thank You for the Music! (2010 album by Ryo Fukawa) - back cover illustration