Minoru Kamiya is a Japanese manga artist born on June 8 in Kamakura, Kanagawa Prefecture. He is a graduate of Tama Art University. Kamiya began his professional career as a mangaka in 1979 and received a Rookie of the Year award for a work titled Last Chance. He is best known as the illustrator of the manga series Plawres Sanshiro, which was serialized in Akita Shoten's Weekly Shonen Champion magazine from 1982 to 1985. The story, written by Jirō Gyū, follows a young boy named Sanshiro Sugata who competes in a fictional sport called PlaWrestling, where miniature plastic robots battle in wrestling matches. The series blends elements of mecha, martial arts, and sports genres.

The popularity of the manga led to a 37-episode anime television series adaptation, also titled Plawres Sanshiro, which aired on TBS from June 1983 to February 1984. For the anime, Kamiya is credited with the original work. The adaptation was directed by Kunihiko Yuyama and produced by Kaname Productions. While the core concept remained the same, the anime featured significant differences from the manga, including character designs adapted by Mutsumi Inomata and several characters created exclusively for the television series. The story in the anime shifts focus over time from tournament battles to a larger narrative about the potential medical applications of PlaWrestling technology and the struggle against those seeking to use it for military purposes.

Following the success of Plawres Sanshiro, Kamiya continued to work as a manga artist. His later illustration credits include Boxer in 1990, FM Senshi SUMO Kids in 1992, and Plawres Van in 2003, a sequel manga to Plawres Sanshiro set twenty years after the original story. The original Plawres Sanshiro is recognized as an influential work in the genre of toy robot and model battle anime and manga, serving as a precursor to later series such as Angelic Layer and Gundam Build Fighters.