Hikaru Hayashi (1961) began his career in the Japanese manga world as an apprentice with well-known artists such as Hajime Furukawa and Noriyoshi Inoue after graduating from from Tokyo Metropolitan University in philosophy. In 1997 he founded the manga design company Go Office, which has among other works published a comprehensive How To Draw Manga series of books, which serve as inspiration for the drawings and animations used in War Sum Up.