The Tragedy of Hiromu Minato

The story of 湊ヒロム / Hiromu Minato is a tragic and interesting one. The image you see above, as well as those shown later, are all her works, but you may be surprised to learn that the crude illustration below is not one of her earlier works, but rather one of her last, a shocking deterioration from her once accomplished character design talents.

She was apparently once a (relatively) popular illustrator for light novels and similar (eroge too, it seems), producing a wide portfolio of fine works, but all this changed when she fatefully began working in a game company; there, one of her coworkers began to sexually harass her, and then started stalking her.

This sorry state of affairs ended in her being the victim of an attempted rape; after this she confessed “I was no longer able to draw”.

The pitiable illustrations shown above were amongst her last published works; soon after she ceased publishing and began working in a field unconnected with illustration.

Her last blog entries, in April of 2007, speak of a terrifying encounter with, and messages from, “that person”, in which it seems she felt she only narrowly escaped an attack of some sort.

She passed away suddenly soon after in the spring of 2007; whether it was by her own hand or due to an illness is something the official announcements are all too tasteful to comment on. Whatever the case, it would seem the indirect cause would be her stalker.

It should be said that this is a one-sided account, largely coming from the person herself and those keen to respect her memory, so there is an undeniable possibility things were more nuanced than this story suggests, but it does seem eminently plausible all the same.

Her homepage is preserved as she left it, so pay your respects if you are of a mind. You can see more of her works on the Channel.

Simply searching for “湊ヒロム” will yield a variety of sources, all either speculative or tightlipped, so unfortunately no definitive details on her tragic career are likely to emerge.