Hiroaki Samura was born on February 17, 1970, in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. From an early age, he aspired to become a manga artist and later attended the Tama Art University, where he studied oil painting. By his own account, he was a poor student who disliked the smell of oil paint and paid someone to complete his coursework. He was active in the university`s manga club, where his senior was the manga artist Makoto Yukimura. He left the university before graduating after securing a serialization opportunity.

Samura made his professional debut in 1993, winning the Afternoon Four Seasons Award for the oneshot that would become his signature work. This series, Blade of the Immortal, began serialization in Kodansha`s Monthly Afternoon magazine in 1993 and concluded in 2012, spanning 30 collected volumes. The epic jidaigeki, or period drama, follows a cursed samurai who must kill a thousand evil men to earn back his mortality. In 1997, the series received an Excellence Award in the manga division at the first Japan Media Arts Festival. Blade of the Immortal has been adapted into anime multiple times, including a 13-episode television series in 2008 and a 24-episode web anime series titled Mugen no Juunin: Immortal that ran from 2019 to 2020. Samura contributed key animation to the 2008 adaptation.

Throughout his career, Samura has created a diverse body of work beyond his most famous samurai epic. He wrote and illustrated Bradherley`s Coach, a dark series published in Manga Erotics F from 2005 to 2007. His other serialized manga include Halcyon Lunch, Fantastic Gynaecocracy, Die Wergelder, and Spring Breeze Snegurochka, the latter of which received an Excellence Award at the 18th Japan Media Arts Festival. In a significant departure from his typically dark and violent subject matter, he began serializing Wave, Listen to Me! in Monthly Afternoon in 2014. This manga is a comedy centered on a young woman in Hokkaido who becomes a talk radio host. It was adapted into a 12-episode anime television series by Sunrise in 2020. Samura also provided illustrations for the series.

Samura is recognized for his prodigious artistic skill, which is grounded in his classical art education. His style is characterized by dynamic visual storytelling and a distinctive use of both detailed pencil work and refined inking. His early chapters of Blade of the Immortal featured a pencil-heavy, grayscale approach, which he later evolved into a style using micron pens and brushes. He is also known for a series of adult-themed pencil drawings titled The Love of the Brute. In addition to his manga and illustration work, he contributed character designs for the Sega video game Blood Will Tell, an adaptation of Osamu Tezukas Dororo, and served as a美术, or art, staff member on the game立体忍者活剧 天诛. He has a noted influence on other artists; Masashi Kishimoto, the creator of Naruto, has cited Samuras work as a major inspiration.