Hideshi Hino was born in Qiqihar to Japanese immigrant workers in Japanese-occupied Northeast China just when Japan surrendered at the end of World War II to the invading Soviet forces.

His family escaped to Japan fearing retribution from Chinese civilians, so his town gathered up everybody and started to make their move to the remaining internationally governed harbours.

He originally began in doujinshi, and his first professional work, the short story Tsumetai Ase, was published in Osamu Tezuka's experimental manga magazine COM in 1967.

With the serialized "Hideshi Hino's Shocking Theater" coming out in 1971, his bizarre world of deviant killers, grotesque beasts, and decaying corpses was firmly established.

In 2004, Pony Canyon made a series of six live action films, based on his manga, called Hideshi Hino's Theater of Horror.