Kakeru Kobashiri is a Japanese novelist and game scenario writer born in Tokyo in 1986. She graduated from the Open University of Japan and began her professional career after winning the 20th Dengeki Novel Prize in 2013 for her work Grimoire of Zero, which she had submitted under the pen name Koketa Kobashiri. She subsequently changed her pen name to Kakeru Kobashiri and made her official debut as a novelist on February 10, 2014.

Kobashiri’s interest in writing was sparked during elementary school when she was assigned to read Hideyuki Kikuchi’s novel Demon City Blues. She was deeply influenced by foreign juvenile novel series such as the Bartimaeus Sequence, The Saga of Darren Shan, and The Seventh Tower, as well as classic fantasy literature and manga like The Lord of the Rings, Kino’s Journey, Slayers, Bastard!!, and Berserk. Her early attempts at submitting works to literary contests were not initially successful, with one submission for the 15th Dengeki Novel Prize only reaching the second round before being rejected, and another submission to a female-oriented label later reaching the final round.

Her creative process typically begins with the development of characters, after which she molds the setting and storyline around them. She has stated that she is consistently conscious of the rhythm and tempo of her prose, taking care not to distract readers with excessive detail and avoiding the use of difficult words and kanji where possible. Her writing is also informed by her background as a technical high school graduate, where she was the only female student in her class, an experience she has cited as a reason she does not write novels based on school life.

Kobashiri’s most notable works are centered on the Grimoire of Zero series. The original light novel series, published under Dengeki Bunko with illustrations by Yoshinori Shizuma, ran for eleven volumes from 2014 to 2017. It received a manga adaptation in December 2014, a spin-off manga in October 2015, and was adapted into an anime television series in 2017. In August 2018, she began publishing a sequel series, The Dawn of the Witch, under Kodansha’s LIGHT NOVEL imprint, with illustrations by Takashi Iwasaki and character designs by Yoshinori Shizuma. This series, which concluded in 2022 with six volumes, also received a manga adaptation serialized in Monthly Shōnen Sirius starting in July 2019 and was adapted into an anime television series by Tezuka Productions that aired from April to July 2022. Kobashiri was involved in these adaptations, reviewing storyboards for the manga and communicating with staff on the anime production.

Beyond her novel series, Kobashiri has contributed to various other projects. She wrote the short story World End Eclipse ~Chops no Yūtsū~ and contributed to the anthology Faust 8 with the work Eien no Eliza. She has also worked as a scenario writer for social network games, including Yuiitsusei Million Arthur, Tokyo Afterschool Summoners, and served as the main scenario writer for Kurosu × Rogosu.

In terms of her artistic identity, Kobashiri’s work is characterized by fantasy settings that explore the dynamics of human and nonhuman relationships. While the presence of therianthropic characters in her stories has led to speculation about a preference for kemonomimi, she has denied this, stating that her interest lies more broadly in the dynamics between humans and nonhumans, such as in human-robot or human-monster relationships. She describes her work as a combination of classic adventure stories and romantic comedies. Her writing is also informed by her enjoyment of video games, children’s literature, picture books, manga, and movies.