Shinozaki

Shinozaki, legally named Lee Baofu and professionally known as Shinozaki Daisen, is a successful comic artist whose search for inspiration leads him to the House of Horrors.

Biography

Finding Yan Danian's work

Shinozaki returns to China with his assistant Xiao Xia while struggling to change his artistic style. Bad-tempered and proud of his reputation, he enters Li Wan City seeking new material, yet his trained eye notices the scenario's unsettling details before many other visitors do. Fear eventually corners him in a room containing Yan Danian's manuscripts. Professional excitement overtakes panic: he recognizes the drawings as original work capable of changing the field, rejects the temptation to appropriate them, and asks to meet their creator. After recovering, he negotiates a sincere collaboration that gives Yan Danian authorship and a share of the royalties. (Chapters 683–696, 705–706)

Appearance and personality

Shinozaki is a middle-aged man who speaks fluent Chinese and travels with a young female assistant. He has a volatile temper and little filter, but his obsessive focus helped him rise from the struggling Lee Baofu to an acclaimed artist. His pride coexists with professional honesty: when confronted with work he considers superior, he gives its creator credit and offers practical support. (Chapters 683–687, 694–696, 705–706)

Skills and supernatural abilities

His expertise is comic art rather than supernatural power. He can evaluate composition, line work, style, and commercial potential at a glance, and he operates through a mature studio with international publishing experience. The House's genuine ghosts remain beyond that expertise, repeatedly defeating his attempts to explain its effects as ordinary attraction technology. (Chapters 683–696, 705–706)

Relationships

• Yan Danian: Shinozaki becomes an admirer and publishing collaborator, helping prepare Ghost Tenants and Underworld Academy while preserving Yan Danian's credited authorship. (Chapters 694–696, 705–706)
• Chen Ge: Chen arranges the meeting and warns Shinozaki to deal honestly with his employee; Shinozaki accepts those terms. (Chapters 705–706)
• Xiao Xia: His assistant steadies his temper, accompanies him through Li Wan City, and helps manage his professional work. (Chapters 683–696)

Items

Shinozaki temporarily carries one of Yan Danian's manuscript pages out of the scenario and returns with it to identify the artist. The manuscripts remain Yan Danian's work, not Shinozaki's property. (Chapters 694–696, 705–706)