Kenshi Hirokane is a Japanese mangaka. Making use of his background as a salaried worker, he has drawn works on the theme of the lives of various adults in modern society and their conflicts. His representative work, the "Kosaku Shima" series was serialized for more than 30 years and became Hirokane's masterpiece. Others representative works include the "Ningen Kousaten" and "Tasogare Ryuuseigun".
He is the President of Hirokane Production Co. and a visiting professor at the Department of Human Communication, Faculty of Welfare and Information Studies, Tokuyama University. He graduated from Waseda University Faculty of Law.
He belonged to a manga research group while at school. In elementary school, he became a Osamu Tezuka fan and aspired to become a manga artist. In the association with other university manga clubs, he met Kaiji Kawaguchi and Ryohei Saigan After graduating, he worked in the advertising department of Matsushita Electric Industrial(now Panasonic) for four years, However, Hirokane, who used "enjoyment" as a criterion in his life, decided that working at a company was not a job for him, and that he wanted to draw manga: he left the company to become a manga artist. At the time, there were still very few manga artists who had been salaried employees of major companies, and Hirokane was one of the first to do so. He made his debut as a manga artist in 1974 with "Kaze Kaoru", which was serialized in the magazine Big Comic.
In 1980, he attracted attention with "Hello Harinezumi" which was serialized in Young Magazine, and in the same year, "Ningen Kousaten" (original work: Masao Yajima), which was serialized in Big Comic Original, received high acclaim. In 1980, he married the mangaka Saimon Fumi, and in 1983, "Kaichou Shima Kosaku" became a big hit when it was serialized in Morning.