A draft of "D.Gray-man" was sent to Shueisha by manga author Katsura Hoshino on a non-specified date. She had mixed feelings about writing the series, since she had been offered other jobs (such as developing video games). However, Shueisha liked the draft and the staff asked Hoshino to go ahead with the series in 2004 believing it would be popular. She had originally intended to write a story about zombies, but was discouraged by her editor T-shi and decided to abandon the idea during the third chapter. Asked about her inspiration for writing about the supernatural, Hoshino said that she feared the supernatural after seeing the 1973 film "The Exorcist". Although the horror film frightened her, it also inspired the author to design the manga's Akuma.