Yusuke Kozaki is a Japanese manga artist, illustrator, and character designer born on May 12, 1978. He studied at a graphic design school where he focused on publicity and commercial-oriented design before beginning his professional career. Kozaki first debuted as a manga artist at the age of nineteen, winning an honorable mention in a Young Magazine new talent contest for his short story "Mikakunin Higoshojo Kaoru." He initially worked as an assistant to established manga creators Takanori Yasaka and Usamaru Furuya. While working as an assistant, he maintained a popular personal illustration website that attracted attention and led to offers for character design work. His first professional character design for a released project was the 2005 anime series Speed Grapher, a role he initially accepted for financial stability but later found creatively fulfilling.

As an original manga creator, Kozaki has produced several series across different genres. His long-running work Karasuma Kyoko no Jikenbo, written by Oji Kiroi, was published from 2002 to 2012 and compiled into ten volumes. He created the manga Donyatsu, which began serialization in 2011 and has been collected into five volumes. The story features unusual characters in a science fiction setting, a combination that arose from his desire to work with sci-fi themes while also creating something unique. According to Kozaki, the original character for Donyatsu was sketched in approximately two minutes during a Skype conversation with a friend who requested a cute character. He has noted that despite the characters having a cute appearance, the story does not necessarily need to be cute as well, suggesting that even seemingly adorable creatures can have unexpected qualities.

Kozaki's work has been adapted across multiple media. His original character designs have appeared in anime productions including Speed Grapher, Intrigue in the Bakumatsu - Irohanihoheto, Bubuki Buranki, and the original net animation Under the Dog. His manga series Tokyo Karasu, which he originally created for the anthology Robot from 2005 to 2008, was later adapted into a manga written by Hiroki Miyashita for which he provided character designs from 2012 to 2013. The Donyatsu manga also inspired anime specials and short films.

Several recurring elements appear throughout Kozaki's creative work. He often combines cute or stylized character designs with serious or science fiction narratives, creating an intentional contrast between appearance and story content. His artistic style is recognized for vibrant colors, expressive poses, and a blend of realism with exaggerated features. When designing characters for different mediums, he adapts his approach accordingly. For manga, he focuses on designs that he can draw repeatedly without difficulty. For video games, he considers how characters will appear as three-dimensional polygon models. For anime, he creates detailed original designs that can be simplified by animation directors for movement while retaining visual impact for close-up shots.

Kozaki holds significant industry standing as a freelance creator whose work has reached global audiences across video games, anime, and manga. His character design for the Fire Emblem series, beginning with Fire Emblem Awakening in 2012, is credited with helping refresh the visual identity of the franchise for international audiences. He was selected for that project specifically because producers sought an artist capable of drawing a wide range of characters efficiently, from young girls to older figures, and because his previous work on games like No More Heroes had proven popular overseas. Within the Fire Emblem community, he has continued contributing as one of the most prolific artists for Fire Emblem Heroes, serving as lead designer for multiple story arcs. His work on the No More Heroes franchise represents an extended creative partnership with director Goichi Suda, with whom he has collaborated since 2007 in production meetings he describes as involving lively and unconventional idea exchanges. Beyond these franchises, his design contributions to the Pokémon series for Pokémon Sword and Shield, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, and the character artwork for Pokémon Go have brought his work to an even broader international audience. His consistent output across major game franchises, original manga, and anime productions establishes him as a versatile creator who has moved successfully between independent manga creation and large-scale commercial character design.