Akihiro Itou is a Japanese manga artist and original creator, born in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture. He began his career using the pen name BREN303, a reference to the Bren light machine gun, with his earliest works appearing in magazines such as Lemon People. Several of these early short stories were later collected in volumes including Take the B Studio.

He is best known as the creator of the manga series Geobreeders, which was serialized in the monthly seinen magazine Young King Ours. The series, which blends action, comedy, and supernatural elements, follows the members of a security company that battles phantom cats capable of assuming human form. It ran from the mid-1990s until 2009, with its chapters collected into sixteen tankōbon volumes. Itou also created the manga series Wilderness, which was serialized in Sunday GX.

The Geobreeders manga served as the foundation for two original video animation adaptations. The first, subtitled Get Back the Kitty, was released across three episodes in 1998, while the second, Geobreeders: Breakthrough, was released across four episodes from 2000 to 2001. For both anime productions, Itou was credited as the original creator, and he also served in the capacities of composition and supervision. The OVAs adapted portions of the manga’s storyline and were noted for their high-density action sequences and gunfights.

In terms of his artistic identity, Itou’s work is characterized by detailed depictions of vehicles and intense gunfights. In an interview, he commented that he draws the Honda Vamos because it is easily recognizable, noted his difficulty with drawing curved lines on vehicles, and stated that he is not a military enthusiast but simply enjoys drawing gunfight scenes. He also mentioned that the detailed rendering of cars in his work was, in part, a response to fan demand.

Itou’s career experienced a significant interruption around 2009, when he reportedly stopped working due to an undisclosed illness. Consequently, both Geobreeders and Wilderness went on hiatus. An attempt was made to start Geobreeders Part 3, with several chapters appearing in Young King Ours, but these chapters have not been collected into a published volume, and the series remains on hiatus. Beyond his major serialized works, his bibliography includes earlier short story collections such as Gallop and Blue Gale, as well as the three-volume series Belle Starr, which is loosely based on the life of the American outlaw, and the standalone volumes Lawman and Battle Girl.