Santa Inoue is a Japanese manga artist and entrepreneur born in Paris, France, in 1968. He is the eldest son of painter Kozo Inoue and lived in Paris until the age of nine before returning to Japan. Inoue briefly attended Nihon University's commerce department but withdrew to pursue a career in manga, a decision influenced by reading the autobiographical series Manga Michi by the creators of Doraemon and by his father's artistic example.

Inoue made his professional debut in 1989 with the short story Murder, which was published in Weekly Young Sunday and won the magazine's newcomer prize. His first serialized work, Bunpuku Chagama Daimaō, followed in 1990. An early work, the horror manga The Neighbor No. Thirteen, was serialized partially in Comic Scholar magazine and published in three tankōbon volumes by Gentosha starting in 1994. The story concerns a man whose violent alter ego reawakens when his childhood bully becomes his new boss. This manga was adapted into a live-action feature film in 2005.

Inoue is most widely recognized for creating the Tokyo Tribe series. The franchise began with the one-volume Tokyo Tribe, published in 1993 by JICC Shuppankyoku. Its primary sequel, Tokyo Tribe2 (released internationally as Tokyo Tribes), was serialized in the urban fashion magazine Boon from 1997 to 2005 and collected in twelve volumes. The series depicts street gang conflicts in a near-future version of Tokyo and is heavily influenced by hip hop and gangsta rap culture, with character designs sometimes modeled after actual rappers. The United States edition of Tokyo Tribe2 was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2005.

An anime television adaptation of Tokyo Tribe2 was produced by Studio Madhouse and broadcast on WOWOW from November 2006 to February 2007, spanning thirteen episodes. Tatsuo Sato directed the series, which remained largely faithful to the source material's urban aesthetic and musical influences. A live-action film adaptation, directed by Sion Sono, was released in Japan in August 2014. Inoue has continued expanding the franchise with titles such as Tokyo Tribe3 (2008-2012), Tokyo Tribe Waru (2016), and various spin-offs including Tokyo Drive, Tokyo Graffiti, and Tokyo Burger.

Beyond the Tokyo Tribe franchise, Inoue has produced a diverse range of manga. Born 2 Die, an urban action drama, was published in 1998. Dan da Barbarian, a fantasy series, ran in Comic Birz from 2009 to 2012. He launched the romance manga Motesuke in 2013, which was also released in English through Amazon Kindle. Inoue has also created promotional artwork for musicians including T.I., De La Soul, and for the Japanese release posters of films such as Straight Outta Compton and BlacKkKlansman.

Inoue's artistic identity is defined by the fusion of manga storytelling with street fashion, hip hop music, and youth subcultures. His visual style incorporates the energy of graffiti art and the aesthetics of urban life, distinguishing him from many of his contemporaries in the seinen manga demographic. This connection to lifestyle culture led him to found the clothing and accessories brand Santastic! in 2002, with flagship stores opening in Shibuya, Tokyo, and Shanghai, China. The brand represents a direct extension of his manga's visual language into fashion and product design.

Within the manga and anime industry, Inoue is significant as a pioneer who bridged the gap between comics and street culture. His work achieved international acclaim and was among the first to be translated and released in the United States, France, and other countries specifically for audiences interested in urban fashion as much as sequential art. As of 2018, Inoue resides in Los Angeles, California, continuing to create new manga such as Zange, which began serialization in 2021, while maintaining his Santastic! brand and pursuing development of a live-action television adaptation of Tokyo Tribes.