Osamu Kaneko

Osamu Kaneko (かねこ統) is a Japanese illustrator and mangaka.

Works

Kaneko's first official work in the Dragon Quest series was being in charge of the art for the manual for the SuperFamicom version of Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride since at the time Akira Toriyama could not publish printed works outside of Shueisha. Since then, Kaneko drawn various artworks -many of them published in the DQ Kids magazines- and designed various character and monster for the Dragon Quest series. Since then, Kaneko has worked with the VJump magazine drawing illustrations for their Dragon Quest articles, and sometimes has drawn short comic stories for official guidebooks.

Manga

Kaneko is better known for his Slime MoriMori manga series:

Slime Adventure (スライム冒険記, published at VJump between 1993-2000)
Slime Operation (スライム大作戦, published at VJump between 2000-2003)
Slime Mori Mori (スライムもりもり, published at VJump between 2003-2015 and at Saikyō Jump between 2012-2016)
Slime Dawn!! (スライムドーン！！, currently published at VJump since 2016)

Character design for Dragon Quest

Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past: Monster design
Dragon Quest III: The Seeds of Salvation: Illustrations for the remakes
Slime MoriMori (series): Character design
Dragon Quest: Monster Battle Road Victory: Final boss design

Gallery

Artwork for DQII's Superfamicom remake, published in DQ Kids. ^[1]
Covers of the first four volumes of "Slime Dawn!!".
Kaneko's DQXI Slimes for VJump and other Shueisha publications.
Dragon Quest Builders comic included in the Japanese guidebook.
Unused design for DQVI's Tania that Kaneko shared on Twitter.^[2]
DQV's Bianca drawn by Kaneko.
DQV's Nera drawn by Kaneko.

Trivia

Despite many people thinking Kaneko is also responsable for the artwork used as boxart in the Slime MoriMori games, they are the work of Akira Toriyama.
The slime with a scar that usually appears in Shueisha's "Weekly Shonen Dragon Quest" is called Surajan (スラジャン), a combination of Slime and Jump.

References

↑ Kaneko expresses nostalgia for a few DQ Kids cover illustrations.
↑ Kaneko shares photos of a DQKids magazine which include an illustration with beta Tania on Twitter. This image is shared in a follow-up tweet.

[note-1] Kaneko expresses nostalgia for a few DQ Kids cover illustrations.

[note2-2] Kaneko shares photos of a DQKids magazine which include an illustration with beta Tania on Twitter. This image is shared in a follow-up tweet.

[1]

[2]