Sanpei Shirato(白土 三平Shirato Sanpei), birth name Noboru Okamoto(岡本 登Okamoto Noboru, born February 15, 1932 in Tokyo, Japan), is a Japanese manga artist and essayist known for his social criticism as well as his realistic drawing style and the characters in his scenarios. He is considered a pioneer of gekiga. The son of the Japanese proletarian painter Toki Okamoto, his dream to become an artist equal with his father started when he became a Kamishibai artist. He is also known for his work published in the early issues of the manga anthology magazine Garo in 1964, which he began publishing so as to serialize his comic Kamui.