Takeshi Obata chose to be a
manga artist because he always loved drawing. As a child he re-read
Shotaro Ishinomori's
Cyborg 009 over and over. His first published manga was in Higashi-Yamanoshita Elementary's
school newspaper when he was in the third grade. It was about a hero who turned into a disposable
pocket warmer when in trouble. Obata originally became noticed in 1985 when he took a prize in the
Tezuka Award for his
one-shot 500 Kōnen no Shinwa. Joining the
Weekly Shōnen Jump staff, he mentored under
Makoto Niwano before starting his first major series, writing and drawing
Cyborg Jii-chan G in 1989. After this series, Obata began collaborating with other writers.
Sakon, the Ventriloquist, with author Sharakumaro, became his first work to be adapted into an
anime. He then created
Hikaru no Go with
Yumi Hotta, which received the 1999
Shogakukan Manga Award and the 2003
Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize. With 25 million collected volumes in circulation, it was adapted into an anime and became his first work to be released in North America. In 2003 he teamed up with
Tsugumi Ohba to create
Death Note. It became his biggest hit to date, with 30 million copies in circulation, an anime adaptation, five live-action films, two live-action TV drama and a musical. Obata served as the artist of
Blue Dragon Ral Grad, a manga adaptation of the fantasy video game
Blue Dragon, from December 2006 to July 2007. In the fall of 2007, he drew the short story "Hello Baby" with writer
Masanori Morita, which appeared in
Jump Square. This was followed a year later by "Urōboe Uroboros!" with
Nisio Isin, who authored the
Death Note Another Note: The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases novel. He then reunited with Tsugumi Ohba for
Bakuman., which ran from August 2008 to April 2012. It was Shueisha's first manga to be released online in multiple languages before becoming available in print outside Japan and had over 15 million copies in publication as of May 2014. In 2014, he drew a manga adaptation of
All You Need Is Kill with Ryōsuke Takeuchi, basing the character designs on
Yoshitoshi ABe's original cover to the novel. He reunited with Nisio Isin for the one-shot "RKD-EK9", that ran in the December 2014 issue of
Jump Square. Obata followed this by working with Nobuaki Enoki to relaunch Enoki's
School Judgment: Gakkyu Hotei digital one-shot as a serial in the first issue of
Weekly Shōnen Jump for 2015. However, the magazine stopped publishing it after the year's 24th issue and the series finished in the digital
Shōnen Jump+ on May 27. It was serialized in English in the digital
Weekly Shonen Jump. From 2015 to 2021, Obata created another series with Ohba called
Platinum End. Starting in the December 2015 issue of
Jump Square on November 4, 2015, the manga ended on January 4, 2021. The series had over 4.5 million copies in circulation by December 2020, and an anime adaptation began airing on television in October 2021. In October 2021, Obata teamed up with novelist Akinari Asakura to start the
owarai-themed manga series
Show-ha Shoten! in the November issue of
Jump Square. In addition to his manga work, Obata has also done character design work for the video game
Castlevania Judgment, as well as illustrating several
light novels. He provided character designs for
Madhouse's anime adaptations of
Osamu Dazai's
No Longer Human and
Natsume Sōseki's
Kokoro, which are parts of the
Aoi Bungaku series. He drew manga manuscripts seen in the 2015 live-action
film adaptation of
Bakuman that were later published in the
Eiga Bakuman. Takeshi Obata Illustration Works book. He also designed a new
CGI character for the 2016
Death Note: Light Up the New World live-action film. On May 3, 2016,
Viz Media published Obata's 2006 art book
Blanc et Noir in North America. ==Personal life==