Natsuki Takaya

Natsuki Takaya (Japanese: 高屋奈月, Hepburn: Takaya Natsuki; born July 7, 1973) is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known for creating the manga series Fruits Basket, which was serialized in Hana to Yume from 1998 to 2006. The series received a Kodansha Manga Award in the shōjo manga category in 2001 and won the American Anime Awards in the Manga category in 2007.

Takaya began her professional career in 1991 with the short story "Sickly Boy wa Hi ni Yowai". She serialized Phantom Dream and Tsubasa: Those with Wings over the next few years before launching Fruits Basket, which was adapted into an anime television series in 2001. Following the success of Fruits Basket, Takaya focused on keeping her later works true to her own style and voice.

She went on to create Twinkle Stars, Liselotte and Witch's Forest, and multiple Fruits Basket spin-off series. In 2019, she served as executive producer for a second anime adaptation of Fruits Basket. Fruits Basket is one of the best-selling shōjo manga works of all time; by 2018, it had sold more than 30 million copies worldwide.