Yuu Watase, Japanese illustrator
Yuu Watase (渡瀬 悠宇, Watase Yū, born March 5, 1970, in Kishiwada, Osaka) is a Japanese manga artist. She debuted in 1989 at the age of 18 with the short story "Pajama de Ojama" (パジャマでおじゃま, "An Intrusion in Pajamas") and has since published more than 50 volumes of one-shots and long-running manga series. One of her most popular titles is Fushigi Yûgi. In 1998, Watase won the 43rd Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo (girls') category for Ceres, Celestial Legend. In 2008, she began her first shōnen (boys') serialization, Arata: The Legend.In 2019, Watase came out as X-gender, a Japanese non-binary gender identity. Following the announcement, an editor for Viz Media's Shojo Beat imprint clarified that Watase's preferred pronouns in English are "she" and "her".