Kazuo Umezu or Kazuo Umezz (楳図 かずお, Umezu Kazuo, birth name 楳図一雄; born September 3, 1936) is a Japanese manga artist, musician and actor. Starting his career in the 1950s, he is among the most famous artists of horror manga and has been vital for its development, considered the "god of horror manga". In 1960s shōjo manga like Reptilia, he broke the industry's conventions by combining the aesthetics of the commercial manga industry with gruesome visual imagery inspired by Japanese folktales, which created a boom of horror manga and inf…