His manga series have been influenced by hip hop culture, with some of the characters being modeled after rappers.

He owns a clothing and accessories business called Santastic!, and has done artwork on several music album covers.

[1] Inoue's debut manga was Murder in 1989 which was published in Weekly Young Sunday and won the magazine's newcomers prize.

[2][3] In 1990, he had his first manga serialization, Bunpuku Chagama Daimaō, which printed in Weekly Young Sunday.

Thirteen, "about a man whose schizophrenic alter ego (Jūzō-gō or Number 13) is reawakened when his former childhood bully becomes his new boss.

[6] In 1993, Santa Inoue created Tokyo Tribe,[3] which was first published straight to tankōbon by JICC Shuppankyoku under the Takarajima Comics Deluxe line.

Tokyo Tribe was republished by Bijutsu Shuppansha, and was later serialized in Boon fashion magazine in 1997[3] for Shodensha.

A short story compilation entitled Santa Inoue was published by Shodensha under the Feel Comics line and in the same year of 1996.

Inoue made a brief appearance on the American show Extreme Makeover: Home Edition in 2004 where he painted a manga/anime-themed mural in one of the bedrooms.

[17] In 2009, Santa Inoue worked on Dan da Barbarian, which was serialized in Comic Birz.

[19] He launched a romance manga called Motesuke in 2013, which debuted in Akita Shoten's Young Champion magazine and also released English version on Amazon Kindle.

[20] Santa Inoue also made original LINE stamp "Tokyo Tribe" and "Kumatta-kun".

[3][27] In addition to music and merchandise, Inoue has designed the artwork for several album covers, most notably for De La Soul.