Yasushi Nirasawa/韮沢 靖 was born on August 26, 1963, in Tochio, Niigata Prefecture and died on February 2, 2016.

He was a Japanese illustrator, character designer, and model maker.

Yasushi was well known for the character designs in Kamen Rider Series entries Kamen Rider Blade, Kamen Rider Kabuto, and Kamen Rider Den-O and the creatures in the GARO series.

Many of Yasushi early work as a designer and sculptor was featured in his Hobby Japan magazine column titled “Creature Core”, which has featured at least one of his sculptures in each monthly issue and was later collected as a hardcover book of the same name.

Also, this column also covers sculptures based on characters from Kamen Rider, Inazuman, Guyver, Phantom of the Paradise, Hellraiser, Hellraiser III, and others.

Whilst working in Hobby Japan, Yasushi Nirasawa produced character designs and cover art for the video games Beast Warriors and A-Rank Thunder Tanjouhen, and illustrations for Japanese RPGs, including illustrations of Michael Moorcock’s Elric for the Japanese edition of Stormbringer.

Following 2009, Yasushi was brought onto the productions of Kamen Rider Decade, the Cho-Den-O Series, and Kamen Rider G in designing the Paradoxa Undead, the Alligator Imagin, the villains Goludora and Shilubara, and the Phylloxera Worm, respectively.

Yasushi then provided the designs of the original villains of the Super Sentai Series’s 2011 entry Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger.

Yasushi Nirasawa designs for the various Tokusatsu productions are published in “undead green bush”, “Gitai”, “say your wish”, and “ZANGYACK WORKS LOG”.

Yasushi Nirasawa passed away at 52 yrs old, due to kidney failure.