Yukari Umezawa was born in Tokyo in 1973, and graduated from
Keio University in 1996. She first played Go at the age of 6 and she became a professional
Go player in 1996. She then attained the rank of
5-dan in 2002 at the age of 29, and was married in the same year. Umezawa supervised the production of
Hikaru no Go, a
manga about Go written by
Yumi Hotta and illustrated by
Takeshi Obata. In 2002 she was starring in her own videogame
Umesawa Yukari no Igo Seminar (梅沢由香里の囲碁セミナー) on
Xbox - a Go simulator. She also became a consultant for the
anime version of
Hikaru no Go and hosted Go educational programs on
NHK. Umezawa's
sensei was
Masao Kato. Umezawa is married to
Shinya Yoshihara. They have a son (born 2011). ==Titles==