Kazuya Minekura is a Japanese manga artist born on March 23, 1975, in Kanagawa Prefecture, where she continues to reside. Her real first name is Hitomi, and she works under the pen name Kazuya Minekura. Before beginning her professional career, she created doujinshi, or self-published works. She made her professional debut in 1993 in the magazine Comic GENKi published by Kadokawa Shoten.

Minekura is most widely recognized as the original creator of the Saiyuki series, a loose adaptation of the classic Chinese novel Journey to the West. This franchise includes multiple manga series such as the original Saiyuki, published from 1997 to 2002, as well as Saiyuki Reload, Saiyuki Gaiden, and Saiyuki Reload Blast. Beyond the Saiyuki universe, her other significant original manga works include Wild Adapter, Bus Gamer, and Shiritsu Araiso Koto Gakko Seitokai Shikkobu, also known as Araiso Private School Student Council Executive Committee. She is also known for the full-color manga Stigma.

Several of Minekura's manga series have been adapted into anime. The Saiyuki franchise alone has spawned multiple television series, including the original Saiyuki anime which aired from 2000 to 2001, as well as Saiyuki Reload and Saiyuki Reload Gunlock. The prequel story Saiyuki Gaiden has also received an anime adaptation. Her manga Bus Gamer was adapted as an anime television special in 2008. Additionally, Wild Adapter and Araiso Private School Student Council Executive Committee were both adapted into original video animation, or OVA, series. Minekura has also been involved in other aspects of these productions, such as writing scripts for drama CDs and providing lyrics for theme songs.

The artistic identity of Kazuya Minekura is characterized by several recurring themes and stylistic choices. Her works frequently blend fantasy, school life, and hard-boiled genres and are notable for their action sequences. She has a stated focus on depicting male relationships and friendships. Her art style often makes significant use of shadow screen tones, and for coloring, she traditionally uses Copic markers but has also adopted computer graphics in recent years. In her author commentary, she typically represents herself with a small, naked, brown-haired character. Many characters in her stories are smokers, a trait shared by Minekura herself.

Throughout her career, Minekura has faced several significant health challenges that have affected her publication schedule. From 2004 to 2007, an illness led to a hysterectomy. In September 2010, she went on hiatus to undergo surgery for an ameloblastoma on her upper jawbone, reporting the surgery was successful later that year. She resumed her manga Wild Adapter in 2015. In April 2021, she revealed she had been diagnosed with spinal canal stenosis, along with multiple other medical problems. Despite these interruptions, her work remains influential, with the Saiyuki series standing as a long-running and significant title in Japanese manga and anime.