Abi Umeda is a Japanese manga artist known as the original creator of the manga and anime series Children of the Whales. She is a female creator born in Kyoto Prefecture. Her professional career began after she received the 64th Newcomer Manga Encouragement Award from Weekly Shonen Champion in 2005 for her work Hebi no Ko. She made her official debut the following year in 2006 with the one-shot Yukokugendan in Weekly Shonen Champion.

Umeda's early work included the short serialization Ningyoshi Iroha in 2006 and the weekly排球-themed manga Full Set!, which ran from 2007 to 2008. Before achieving recognition as a manga artist, she worked in a childcare facility for school-age children. Her early career was primarily associated with shonen manga magazines, but she later shifted to publishing in shojo magazines, a move that allowed her to further develop her artistic sensitivity.

Her most significant original work is Children of the Whales, known in Japanese as Kujira no Kora wa Sajō ni Utau. The series began serialization in the shojo manga magazine Mystery Bonita in 2013 and concluded in February 2023, spanning 23 collected volumes. The story is a post-apocalyptic fantasy adventure set in a vast sea of sand, following the inhabitants of a massive island-like ship called the Mud Whale who struggle to survive against outside forces. In 2015, the series was recognized as one of the top ten manga for female readers in the Kono Manga ga Sugoi! guidebook.

The manga was adapted into an anime television series that aired from October to December 2017, with Umeda credited as the original creator. This adaptation brought her work to a broader international audience. Children of the Whales is her eighth manga work overall. Prior to this, she created other serialized titles including Gentsudan Janome, which ran from 2008 to 2010 and was published in seven volumes, Blueish in two volumes from 2011 to 2012, and Ore Ore in one volume in 2013, for which she provided the art based on an original story by Toshiyuki Sakura.

Umeda's artistic identity is characterized by a delicate and soft brushwork style that simultaneously expresses a strange sense of immorality or sensuality. Her work is noted for its intricate and atmospheric quality, effective use of narrative tension, and passionate creativity expressed through page and panel layouts. She demonstrates a particular strength in depicting the psychology of characters and detailed situational settings, paying careful attention not only to main characters but also to supporting cast. Her thematic focus has often centered on legend and mystery, though her work on Full Set! emphasized realism in sports manga, and Children of the Whales is a classical fantasy.

Umeda's industry significance is demonstrated by her successful transition from shonen to shojo manga and her creation of a critically recognized series that achieved both manga guidebook honors and a complete anime adaptation. Her work continues to be published in short form, including the two-part story Saika de Kanojo ga Madou nara in Big Comic Spirits in 2023 and Seichoki on the Comic Punch Kai platform in 2024. She has also contributed illustration work to other projects, including a crossover illustration for the television anime Young Black Jack and short manga for official anthologies of popular series such as Yowamushi Pedal and The Vampire Dies in No Time.