Kobako Hanato was a Japanese novelist, playwright, and screenwriter whose creative work contributed to Japanese popular culture in the mid-twentieth century. His real name was Hanato Sannosuke. He was born on March 12, 1928, in Shiga Prefecture, Japan, and passed away on October 3, 1983.

Hanato is credited as an original creator and writer for the 1971 anime television series Apache Yakyugun, which is known in English as Apache Baseball Team. His writing credits during the 1960s include work on several comedy and drama films. His screenwriting filmography includes Jolly Barbers from 1963, Dai nippon kosodoro den and Murder Unincorporated from 1965, and I Sell My Husband from 1968. In the early 1960s, he also wrote for a series of films about a head clerk and an apprentice, including Bantohan to detchidon in 1960 and its sequels in 1961. Later in his career, he wrote the novel Ginza mesu, published in 1984.