Kouta Hirano (平野 耕太, Hirano Kōta, born July 14, 1973) is a Japanese manga artist born in Adachi, Tokyo, Japan, most famous for his manga Hellsing[1] and Drifters.

However, Hellsing was not the earliest Hirano series to be published in Young King OURs monthly.

In 1996, the same year Hellsing's precursor, The Legends of Vampire Hunter, was first released as a single H short story in Heavenly Pleasure (a monthly H-centric manga magazine), another World War II-based short story named Hi-And-Low was being published in Young King OURs by a then lesser-known Kouta Hirano.

The story takes place primarily at a train station in Russia and features two female characters that are strikingly similar to Integra Helsing from Hellsing and Yumiko/Yumie in Crossfire; and who are, in actuality, undercover Axis spies in-league with one another for a common purpose: the success of Operation Barbarossa.

Hirano has also been part of a doujinshi circle titled GUY-YA, consisting of himself and Read or Die manga artist Shutaro Yamada.