Kentaro Yabuki is a Japanese manga artist and illustrator born on February 4, 1980, in Okayama Prefecture, though he has stated he formed his personality in Kōchi. He is best known as the creator of the action series Black Cat and as the illustrator for the long-running romantic comedy franchise To Love Ru. His artistic style and career were heavily influenced by Akira Toriyama, creator of Dragon Ball, from whom Yabuki has said he learned everything about drawing manga. As a teenager, he submitted a fusion illustration of the characters Gohan and Trunks to a contest in Weekly Shōnen Jump and won a prize. He also served as an apprentice under Takeshi Obata, the illustrator of Death Note and Hikaru no Go.

Yabuki made his professional debut with a short serialization of Yamato Gensōki in Weekly Shōnen Jump in 1998. His first major success came with Black Cat, which was serialized in the same magazine from 2000 to 2004. The manga sold over twelve million copies in Japan and was adapted into a twenty-four episode anime television series produced by the studio Gonzo.

Following the conclusion of Black Cat, Yabuki began a long-term collaboration with writer Saki Hasemi. Together they created To Love Ru, which Yabuki illustrated while Hasemi wrote the story. The series ran in Weekly Shōnen Jump from 2006 to 2009 and was adapted into multiple anime television series and original video animations. Yabuki and Hasemi continued the franchise with To Love Ru Darkness, which was serialized in Jump Square from 2010 to 2017. Combined, the two To Love Ru manga series have over sixteen million copies in circulation.

In addition to his collaborative work, Yabuki has written and illustrated his own original series. He created the manga Ayakashi Triangle, which began serialization in Weekly Shōnen Jump in June 2020 before moving to the Shōnen Jump+ platform in April 2022, where it ran until September 2023. The series was also adapted into an anime. Yabuki has worked on other projects as an illustrator, including a manga adaptation of the anime Darling in the Franxx from 2018 to 2020 and providing illustrations for the light novel series Hatena Illusion.