Yuu Watase (?? ??, Watase Yuu, born March 5, 1970, in Kishiwada, Osaka) is a Japanese shojo manga artist.
Watase received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shojo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997.
Watase debuted at the age of eighteen with the short story "Pajama de Ojama" ("An Intrusion in Pajamas"), and has since created more than 80 compiled volumes of short stories and continuing series.
In October 2008, Watase began her first shonen serialization, Arata: The Legend in Weekly Shonen Sunday.
Her name is romanized as "Yû Watase" in earlier printings of Viz Media's publications of Fushigi Yugi, Alice 19th, and Ceres, Celestial Legend while in Viz Media's Fushigi Yugi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend the name is romanized as "Yuu Watase".
In Chuang Yi's English-language versions of Fushigi Yugi (spelled without a macron or circumflex), the name is romanized as "Yu Watase".
Yuu Watase is a pen name.
She chose "Yuu" because she liked the name.
In May 2019, Watase came out as x-gender, a Japanese non-binary gender identity.