The industry is an interesting place,In fact, let’s learn a thing or two about our favorite artists!

Don’t go, this will be fun!Do you know how many of your favorite mangaka have worked in the hentai industry? A lot. We all have to start somewhere, right?

1. Koshi Rikdo (Excel Saga)

Rikdo first created the character of Excel Saga in a hentaidoujinshi. Unlike most of the artists on this list, that fact was thrust into the fans face as a joke in the Excel Saga anime.

2. Rei Hiroe (Black Lagoon)

Black Lagoon is brash, so Rei’s hentai past shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s even written a few doujin’s starring the Black Lagoon cast, but most of his works involve other popular anime and video games, which he creates under the pen-name Tex-Mex.

3. Maki Murakami (Gravitation)

Gravitation was the first yaoi manga to hit the mainstream in America, but that didn’t stop Murakami from creating hardcore yaoi…with her own characters no less! Talk about giving fans what they want.

4. Kenichi Sonoda (Gunsmith Cats)

Sonoda may have faded from the mainstream since the end of the ’80s, but he was one of the most prolific character designers of the era, working on titles like Bubblegum Crisis, Gall Force, and Royal Space Force.

5. Satoshi Urushihara (Growlanser)

A big name in the Japanese art community, Urushihara is known for designing the characters of the Growlanser video game series and designing the covers of the popular Tenma Comics hentai-manga anthology.

6. Kohta Hirano (Hellsing)

Kohta Hirano has a bit of a cult following due to the massive success of Hellsing. This might be old news to long-time fans, but every character originally appeared in one of his various hentaiseries that he made as a freelancer.

7. Masamune Shirow (Ghost in the Shell)

Shirow has a bit of an amazing story. Starting out as a hentaiartist, he managed to create the sci-ficlassics Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell. What did he do with his newfound success? He went back to creating hentai, which he does to this day while working on some anime as a side job.

8. Kwang-Hyun Kim (Freezing)

Freezing is a Japanese manga created by a Korean writer-artist duo, so for categorical reasons, it’s not a manhwa. Getting that out of the way, Kwang-Hyun has dabbled in the hentai industry, even writing a few doujin using the Freezing cast.

9. Shun “Tosh” Saeki (Shokugeki no Soma)

Tosh is a prolific hentai artist and has been published in several magazines catering to exotic tastes. He’s also currently the artist for Shokugeki no Soma, which is published in Weekly ShonenJump.

10. Akira Akatsuki (Medaka Box)

Looking at Medaka Kurokami’s design, and you won’t be surprised to learn that Akira started out in the hentai industry. It’s unknown if he still does hentai, but if he does it’s likely because he prefers it considering Medaka Box‘s success.

11. Ken Akamatsu (Love Hina)

Akamatsu got his start in the industry drawing a hardcore Cardcaptor Sakura doujin, and I am so sorry for mentioning that.

12. Ito “Oh Great!” Ogure (Air Gear)

Starting out as a hentai artist, Oh Great! achieved mainstream success in the late ’90s to early 2000s with Tenjho Tenge and Air Gear and he has even designed alternate costumes for Tekken6 and Soul Calibur IV. Oh Great! has never forgotten his roots, as he does still create hentai.

13. Sakura  Kinoshita and Kazuko Higashiyama(Tactics)

Perhaps the creators planned it from the start, or maybe the fujoshi were loud, but several yaoi doujin and spin-offs were created for the Tactics series by the original authors.

14. Yu Aida (Gunslinger Girl)

Perhaps this isn’t surprising to series fans, but Gunslinger Girl originally started out as a lolicon doujin series. The story was too good to pass up, so Aida got a chance to clean it up.

15. Masaki Kajishima (Tenchi Muyo!)

We all have bills to pay, and Kajishima is included. His career started as a hentai artist, and he’s even done a few with the Tenchi cast.

16. Kazuya  Minekura (Saiyuki)

If you read Wild Adapter or Saiyuki, it’s pretty obvious that Kazuya started out as a yaoi hentai artist.

17. Kazushi Hagiwara (Bastard!!)

Hagiwara heads a doujin circle called Studio Loud in School for the purpose of creating hentai retellings of various Bastard!! chapters, which are pretty smutty to begin with. The man gets props for actually advertising the fact on the back of a few official volumes.

18. Hanaharu Naruko (Suisei no Gargantia)

Remember Suisei no Gargantia? That one happy anime created and written by Gen Urobuchi? He got a former hentai artists to design the attractive characters. Now that dance scene makes a lot more sense.

19. Hiromitsu Takeda (Maken-ki!)

Maken-ki! is the first mainstream series of Takeda’s, who is famous in the hentai community for popularized a certain drawing style known as the “ahegao,” just be sure to clear your browser history after researching.

20. Tony Taka (Shining Hearts)

Tony Taka is one of the most famous illustrators in Japan due to his unique style. His mainstream success comes from being the character designer of the Shining video game series, but he does work on eroge and has released a few hentai art books.

21. Toshihiro Ono (The Electric Tale of Pikachu)

The first ever Pokemon manga and the cover art of the influential Crest of the Stars were drawn by the same person that created Anal Justice and various futanari (don’t Google it if you want to stay pure) and shotacon hentai.

22. Nozomu Tamaki (Dance in the Vampire Bund)

Before striking mainstream success with Dance in the Vampire Bund, Tamaki was known for writing hentai with actual storylines. Some might argue that the stories are better than Dance in the Vampire Bund.

23. Shouji Sato (Highschool of the Dead)

Sato is currently the most popular and successful hentai artist turned mangaka in the industry. Highschool of the Dead was a massively popular anime, and his current hit Triage X is getting an adaptation for the Spring 2015 season.

24. Mine Yoshizaki (Keroro Gunsou)

Everyone has to start somewhere, and Yoshizaki started out writing hentai based on popular video games before creating Keroro Gunsou and Arcade Gamer Fubuki.

25. Go Nagai (Mazinger Z)

Go Nagai is known for including erotic moments in all of his manga series, so it’s not terribly surprising that he has done his fair share of hentai.

26. Keito Koume (Spice & Wolf)

The cover artist of the Spice & Wolf light novels also creates hentai? Maybe you can rest easy (or cry with disappointment) knowing that none of what he has done is Spice & Wolf related.

27. Takemaru “Okayado” Inui (Daily Life with Monster Girls)

Okayado started his career as a simple fan artist sharing his love of monster girls on Pixiv. Now, he has created the world-wide phenomenon that is Monster Musume.

28. Kentaro Yabuki (To Love-Ru)

There are rumors that Kentaro Yabuki has been involved in the hentai industry in the past, but his creations were under a pen-name. However, he did recently draw ero-art using several To Love-Ru characters.

29. Kiyohiko Azuma (Azumanga Daioh)

Azuma is known for his two wholesome comedy series Azumanga Daioh and Yotsuba&. Before hitting the big time, he headed up a doujin circle and even created a one-shot about a student-teacher “tutoring” session.