Takeshi Obata is a Japanese manga artist born on February 11, 1969, in Niigata Prefecture, Japan. He began his career at a young age, first gaining recognition in 1985 when he won a Tezuka Award for a one-shot titled 500 Kōnen no Shinwa, submitted under the pen name Shigeru Hijikata. After graduating from high school, he worked as an assistant to manga creators such as Makoto Niwano before launching his first serialized work, Cyborg Jii-chan G, in 1989. Throughout his career, Obata has primarily served as an illustrator in collaboration with various writers, a role that has defined his creative output. His notable collaborators include Yumi Hotta, Tsugumi Ohba, Nisio Isin, and Akinari Asakura. Beyond his own work, he has mentored several influential manga artists, including Nobuhiro Watsuki, Kentaro Yabuki, and Yusuke Murata.

Obata's bibliography is extensive, featuring many works that have achieved both critical and commercial success. His first major international recognition came with Hikaru no Go, a series about the board game Go created with writer Yumi Hotta, which serialized from 1998 to 2003 and won the Shogakukan Manga Award. He is best known for Death Note, a psychological thriller created with writer Tsugumi Ohba that ran from 2003 to 2006 and became a global phenomenon with over 30 million copies in circulation. The duo of Obata and Ohba reunited for Bakuman., a manga about the manga industry, which ran from 2008 to 2012 and also achieved significant popularity. Their third major collaboration was Platinum End, which ran from 2015 to 2021. His recent work includes Show-ha Shoten!, a series about comedy, created with writer Akinari Asakura, which began serialization in 2021. In addition to manga, Obata has worked as a character designer for video games such as Castlevania Judgment and for anime projects, including the Aoi Bungaku series and the film Bubble.

Many of Obata's manga works have been adapted into other media. Hikaru no Go, Death Note, Bakuman., and Platinum End have all received anime television series adaptations. Sakon, the Ventriloquist was his first work to be adapted into an anime. Death Note, in particular, has been adapted into multiple live-action films, a television drama, and a musical. Bakuman. was also adapted into a live-action film, for which Obata provided original manuscript illustrations that were later published in an art book.

As an artist, Obata is known for his highly detailed and photorealistic style, which he adapts to suit the tone of the story he is illustrating. His work often features a recurring pattern of pairing a young male protagonist with a non-human companion or mentor figure, as seen in Hikaru no Go, Death Note, and Platinum End. While he began his career writing his own stories, he has since become celebrated for his visual storytelling and ability to elevate the narratives of his collaborators. His artistic influence extends to many prominent artists he mentored, and his contributions have been recognized with several prestigious awards, including the Shogakukan Manga Award and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for Hikaru no Go.

Takeshi Obata is considered a significant figure in the manga industry, highly regarded for his consistent artistic excellence and his role as a mentor to a generation of successful artists. His series, particularly Death Note and Hikaru no Go, have had a substantial cultural impact and have been credited with popularizing their respective subjects, with Hikaru no Go notably increasing the number of young people interested in the game of Go. In September 2006, Obata was arrested for possession of a knife after a traffic stop, a matter he stated was for camping purposes.