Range Murata

Range Murata wanted to be a car designer, not an illustrator. Born in Osaka in 1968, he went to university intending to study retro automotive design, realized the path he actually wanted didn't really exist there, and dropped out. He picked up freelance character design work instead, starting with Atlus's Power Instinct fighting game series in 1993.

The studio relationship that defined his career came next. Murata became closely associated with GONZO, providing character and mechanical design for Blue Submarine No. 6 in 1998 and Last Exile in 2003, two anime known as much for their visual identity as their stories. His style blends dieselpunk machinery with soft, moe-influenced character work, a combination distinctive enough that fans can usually spot a Murata design without a credit.

Outside commercial work, Murata has kept running an independent doujin circle called PASTA'S ESTAB, self-publishing art books and selling them directly at Comiket rather than exclusively through a publisher. That's the same self-published material that circulates in resale now, official telephone cards, character filegraphy books, and doujin releases, all bearing his own imprint rather than a studio's. He won the Seiun Award for Best Artist in 2006, one of the more respected honors in Japanese science fiction and illustration.

Dig through what's in stock: Books Japan · Cards Graded Japan