15 Japanese science fiction writers

This is a list of Japanese speculative fiction writers. Writers are sorted alphabetically by surname.

Kōbō Abe , pen name of Kimifusa Abe , was a Japanese writer, playwright, musician, photographer and inventor. Abe has been often compared to Franz Kafka and Alberto Moravia for his modernist sensibilities and his surreal, often nightmarish explorations of individuals in contemporary society.

Shinichi Hoshi was a Japanese novelist and science fiction writer best known for his "short-short" science fiction stories, often no more than three or four pages in length, of which he wrote over 1000. He also wrote mysteries and won the Mystery Writers of Japan Award for Mōsō Ginkō in 1968.

Inoue Hisashi was a leading Japanese playwright and writer of comic fiction. From 1961 to 1986, he used the pen name of Uchiyama Hisashi.

Ken Kuronuma was the pen-name of novelist, science fiction, and mystery writer in Shōwa period Japan. His real name was Michio Soda . His father, Sōda Kiichirō (左右田喜一郎), was an economist and a banker.

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan as well as internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and selling millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his work, including the Gunzou Prize for New Writers, the World Fantasy Award, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, the Franz Kafka Prize, and the Jerusalem Prize.

Kiyoshi Nagai , better known by the pen name Go Nagai , is a Japanese manga artist and a prolific author of science fiction, fantasy, horror and erotica. He made his professional debut in 1967 with Meakashi Polikichi, but is best known for creating popular 1970s manga and anime series such as Cutie Honey, Devilman and Mazinger Z. He is credited with creating the super robot genre and for designing the first mecha robots piloted by a user from within a cockpit with Mazinger Z, and for pioneering the magical girl genre with Cutie Honey, the post-apocalyptic manga/anime genre with Violence Jack, and the ecchi genre with Harenchi Gakuen. In 2005, he became a Character Design professor at the Osaka University of Arts. He has been a member of the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize's nominating committee since 2009.

Kenzaburō Ōe is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, including nuclear weapons, nuclear power, social non-conformism, and existentialism. Ōe was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1994 for creating "an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today".

Shunrō Oshikawa was a Japanese author, journalist and editor, best known as a pioneer of science fiction.

Akimitsu Takagi , was the pen-name of a popular Japanese crime fiction writer active during the Shōwa period of Japan. His real name was Takagi Seiichi.

Katsuhiko Takahashi is a Japanese writer of mystery, horror, science fiction and historical fiction. He is a member of the Mystery Writers of Japan.

Eiji Tsuburaya was a Japanese special effects director. Known as the "Father of Tokusatsu", he worked on 250 feature films in a career spanning 50 years. He is regarded as one of the co-creators of the Godzilla series, as well as the main creator of the Ultra series. During his rise to post-war fame in the wake of Godzilla (1954), it was widely reported that Tsuburaya was born on July 7, which is the high day of Tanabata, a sign of good fortune.

Tow Ubukata is the pen name of a Japanese novelist and anime screenwriter. His major works include Mardock Scramble, Le Chevalier D'Eon and Heroic Age. He also did series composition for the Fafner in the Azure series, Ghost in the Shell: Arise, Psycho-Pass 2 and Psycho-Pass 3.

Akira Watanabe was a Japanese special effects art director who worked on 38 films in a career spanning 25 years.

Baku Yumemakura is a Japanese science fiction and adventure writer. His works have sold more than 20 million copies in Japan spread across more than 280 titles. He is published in a variety of formats including feature films, television shows, movies and comic books.