Clamp Studios
The artists behind X and the manga book of the same title, Clamp Studios is famous for its work and unusual staff configuration. Clamp is made up of four talented women: Nanase Ohkawa, Mokona Apapa, Mikku "Mick" Nekoi and Satsuki Igarashi. These four women, three of whom went to high school together, have distinguished themselves as one the most consistent top-selling manga artists.

Nanase Ohkawa, who is primarily responsible for Clamp's writing, credits Japanese animation masters Go Nagai and Osamu Tezuka and Hitchcock as well as Twelve Monkeys, Jacob's Ladder, Silence of the Lambs, and The Dead Zone as her major influences. Remarkably, she conceived of the basic story of X in elementary school when "the 'Gaia' theory was starting to circulate-- The idea that the Earth itself was one living organism." Once they had formed Clamp, the team brought the story of X directly to a publisher because it was a story that felt compelled to create.

After seven years of working together as a team, Clamp's manga books, Tokyo Babylon, Magic Knight, Rayearth, X/1999 and RG Vega, and their animated television show, "Primera's Magic Knight Rayearth," have propelled them to national and international stardom.