was a Japanese manga artist. He graduated from the Department of Visual Communication Design at Musashino Art University. He made his professional debut in 2003 with the one-shot "", winning Monthly Ikki magazine's Ikiman award for rookie artists. On October 9, 2011, an employee of Aoyama's publisher Kodansha called the police because they had not been able to contact him for several days. The police broke into Aoyama's Tokyo apartment and found him dead in a suicide by hanging. Two days later on October 11, 2011, Kodansha published the last completed chapter of his manga series in Evening magazine. On February 23, 2012, Shogakukan released a collection of Aoyama's early works titled The Dog Race: (THE DOG RACE ). The volume contains eight one-shots, including Aoyama's university graduation project and several previously unreleased manga.