Makoto Yukimura is a Japanese manga artist born on May 8, 1976, in Yokohama, Japan. He is best known as the creator of the acclaimed manga series Planetes and Vinland Saga. Yukimura was inspired to become a manga artist as a boy after reading Fist of the North Star, and he later worked as an assistant to manga author Shin Morimura before making his own professional debut.

Yukimura made his debut with the hard science fiction manga Planetes, which was serialized in Kodansha's Weekly Morning magazine from 1999 to 2004. The series, set in the 2070s, follows the crew of a space debris collection craft in Earth's orbit. Planetes is noted for its gritty realism, attention to technical detail, and its focus on the daily lives and struggles of its characters within a futuristic setting. The manga was collected into four volumes and later received a twenty-six episode anime television adaptation produced by Sunrise, directed by Gorō Taniguchi, which aired from 2003 to 2004. Both the original Planetes manga and its anime adaptation were awarded the Seiun Award for best science fiction series.

Yukimura is currently working on his second major series, Vinland Saga, which began serialization in 2005. The story is a dramatization of the historical exploits of Thorfinn Karlsefni, an Icelandic explorer who led an expedition to North America, referred to as Vinland. The narrative follows Thorfinn from a youth driven by revenge as a Viking warrior to a young adult who, having experienced the trauma of violence, aspires to build a peaceful colony free from slavery and war. Yukimura has stated he hates the concept of violence and that his own sensations during the Cold War and the September 11 attacks were projected onto the protagonist Thorfinn, shaping the story's anti-violence themes. He was also inspired to explore Viking history by the anime series Vicky the Viking, which he watched as a child.

Vinland Saga was first serialized in the shonen magazine Weekly Shōnen Magazine but was moved to the monthly seinen magazine Afternoon due to Yukimura finding it difficult to maintain a weekly production schedule. The series has been highly successful, receiving the Grand Prize in the manga category at the 2009 Japan Media Arts Festival and winning the 36th Kodansha Manga Award for Best General Manga in 2012. As of August 2022, the manga had over seven million copies in circulation. The series was adapted into a twenty-four episode anime by Wit Studio that aired from July to December 2019. A second season, produced by MAPPA, aired from January to June 2023. Yukimura has praised the anime adaptation for addressing pacing issues present in the manga. In August 2022, he also produced a crossover manga chapter between Vinland Saga and the video game Assassin's Creed Valhalla.

In his artistic approach, Yukimura pays special attention to drawing hands, which he believes are more expressive than faces and can convey a person's personality, an influence he credits to manga author Katsuhiro Otomo. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he began drawing the chapters of Vinland Saga digitally. Yukimura has expressed admiration for other creators, including Hajime Isayama, the author of Attack on Titan, for his ability to manage a long-running narrative. In 2010, Yukimura was a guest of the Angoulême International Comics Festival, and in July 2023, he made his first United States convention appearance at San Diego Comic-Con.