Ayami Kojima

Ayami Kojima is a Japanese artist known for her artwork, illustration and design for the Castlevania series, developed and published by Konami. She has a distinct dark, gothic style.  The first Castlevania game Kojima worked on was Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. She has since made character designs and artwork for many games in the series. During the period she was working on Castlevania: Lament of Innocence, Castlevania: Cuse of Darkness, and Castlevania: The Dracula X Chronicles, Konami used anime-style art in the Nintendo DS games Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow and Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, in what was presumably an attempt to appeal to younger demographics. This resulted in huge complaints from the fanbase, which made Konami return to darker, more gothic artwork in the third DS game, Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia(the artwork in Ecclesia was, however, not made by Kojima, but by an artist called Hirooka Masaki). It is currently unknown whether or not Kojima is in charge of artwork for the latest Castlevania game.