20 Best Female Manga Artists You Need to Know

by Will Heath | ART

When we think about modern Japanese art, we often picture manga and anime. Since the 1950s, Japan has been building and forming a specific artistic and narrative style through the visual storytelling medium that is manga. A manga can tell any kind of story, for any age group, within any genre. And, for decades, they have.

Both inside and outside Japan, manga is enjoyed by women and men of all ages, and some of the greatest manga have been created by immensely talented women. Even some of the most successful shounen manga - traditionally written for young men to enjoy - have been created by female mangaka.

From groundbreaking artists who shook the world of manga to the most ground-breaking romance, fantasy, and action writers in the business, these are some of the best female manga artists in the industry’s history.

Our editors independently researched and recommend the best products. We may receive commissions on purchases made from our chosen links at no additional cost to you.

1. Rumiko Takahashi (creator of Inuyasha)

Niigata-born Rumio Takahashi is an absolute legend of the manga world, with a fanbase that spans the entire world. Her biggest work, which remains popular to this day, is the long-running fantasy romance Inuyasha, which began in 1996 and didn’t wrap until 2008.

Alongside Inuyasha, Takahashi is also known for Ranma ½ and Maison Ikkoku. Ranma ½ was Takahashi’s first long-running series, which started in the mid-80s and wrapped just before Inuyasha began. For decades, Takahashi has been one of the hardest-working and highest-earning mangaka in Japan.

Check out Volume 1 of Maison Ikkoku on Amazon.

2. Hiromu Arakawa (creator of Full Metal Alchemist)

From a mangaka who took the shounen genre and turned it into an empowering female narrative to one who created one of the most celebrated shounen manga of all time. Hokkaido-born Hiromu Arakawa (pen name of Hiromi Arakawa) is the creator of Full Metal Alchemist.

The second anime adaptation of Full Metal Alchemist, known as Brotherhood, is widely regarded as one of the giants of anime, and it adapted faithfully the incredible manga originally written and drawn by Arakawa.

Beginning her manga career after moving to Tokyo in 1999, Arakawa is now a giant of the industry, and Full Metal Alchemist will go down in history as one of the manga and anime world’s finest creations: a series of deep history and lore, exciting magic systems, and broad, engrossing character arcs. Arakawa’s characters defy genre tropes and represent something truly unique in the world of manga and anime.

If you want to dabble in Arakawa’s engrossing animated world of monsters mystery and unbreakable family ties, Full Metal Alchemist is available on Amazon.

3. Natsuki Takaya (creator of Fruits Basket)

Tokyo-born mangaka Natsuki Takaya is best-known for her iconic manga series, Fruits Basket. This is a shoujo manga which, in the West, has taken on a kind of cult status. It was adapted into a serviceable anime series in 2001 but more recently re-adapted into a more visually impressive and ambitious anime reboot in 2019.

Fruits Basket is a beloved shoujo manga which follows the life of Toru Honda, an optimistic young woman who stays strong in the face of adversity. When Toru ends up living in the home of the Soma family, she soon discovers that this family hides a magical curse related to the animals of the Chinese zodiac. From here, hijinks ensue and the story balances well between comedy and tragedy.

This legendary manga series, which ran from 1998 to 2006, has cemented Natsuki Takaya as one of the great mangaka of the last few decades, with a roaring fanbase that spans the entire globe.

Check out the first volume of Fruits Basket on Amazon.

4. Ichigo Takano (creator of Orange)

Born in Nagano and still very young for a manga artist of her renown and calibre, Ichigo Takano is the creator of Orange, a popular six-volume manga series which was adapted into a 13-episode anime series just before the manga wrapped. You can check out the complete collection here.

Orange is one of Japan’s most famous and adored shoujo manga. Its story follows a high school girl named Naho Takamiya who receives a letter from her almost-thirty-year-old self. The letter tells her about a new student due to join her school: a boy who is tied to what the letter claims is her biggest regret.

Orange (especially Takano’s original manga) was a colossal hit amongst high school and university students across Japan, and remains a huge cultural moment. This manga alone has cemented the young Ichigo Takano a place in the pantheon of the best Japanese manga artists.

5. CLAMP (creator of Chobits and Cardcaptor Sakura)

CLAMP is the name chosen by a collection of stellar female manga artists and writers who were at the height of their popularity in the 90s. While they began in the 80s with eleven members, their numbers soon slimmed down to four. And it was those four - Nanase Okawa, Mokono Apapa, Tsubaki Nekoi, and Satsuki Igarashi - who brought us such iconic manga as Tokyo Babylon, Cardcaptor Sakura, and Chobits.

It was Cardcaptor Sakura that really raised CLAMP up to legendary status. Alongside her contemporary, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura is responsible for the dizzying popularity of the magical girl genre of shoujo manga; a genre which remains popular and beloved to this day.

6. Kore Yamazaki (creator of The Ancient Magus Bride)

© Kore Yamazaki, The Ancient Magus Bride

Kore Yamazaki is another young rising star in the world of Japanese manga. Born in Hokkaido in 1990, she has created a series with a lot of buzz and catter surrounding it. The Ancient Magus Bride is an ongoing manga series which began in 2013 and has been adapted into an anime of the same name.

While the anime adaptation has finished, the manga is still ongoing, with Yamazaki both writing and drawing the series. The story of The Ancient Magus Bride takes an orphaned Japanese high school girl and places her in the strange world of an enormous demon-like British magus who buys her at an auction. It’s a controversial series, and that controversy has only spurred Yamazaki’s popularity as a rising manga star.

Get started with volume 1 on Amazon.

7. Fumiyo Kono (creator of In This Corner of the World)

© Fumiyo Kono, In This Corner of the World

In This Corner of the World is a celebrated, award-winning contemporary manga series by Fumiyo Kono, whose other popular series, released in 2004, was titled Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms.

Both of Kono’s popular manga series are set in and around Hiroshima, where Kono herself grew up. In This Corner of the World, which was recently adapted into an anime film, follows the story of a young woman who lives in Kure, a naval town just outside Hiroshima, under the shadow of World War II. The story explores Japanese civilian life in the area during the destructive times of war.

Town of Evening Calm, Country of Cherry Blossoms, which has been adapted into both a novel and a live-action film, tells two different stories. The first is set ten years after the bombing of Hiroshima and follows a family living in post-war 1950s Japan. The second story follows the next generation of that family, living in 1980s Tokyo.

These two short historical manga have both led to awards, accolades, adaptations, and universal praise for Fumiyo Kono, one of modern Japan’s most inspiring manga artists.

8. Kaori Ozaki (creator of Gods Lie)

Like many popular mangaka, Kaori Ozaki found her start early in life, first being published at age 15 for her series An Angel Above the Piano. Today, she is best known for her series Immortal Rain which, like Fruits Basket and Chobits, found cult status in the West.

Ozaki’s most recent big hit manga was Gods Lie, a beautiful 2016 slice-of-life manga about finding your way in life. It’s a manga that follows a young boy who feels directionless and hopeless until he meets a girl who helps open his eyes and teach him perspective.

9. Kazue Kato (creator of Blue Exorcist)

Known for creating the hugely popular manga series Blue Exorcist, Kazue Kato was born in Shinjuku in 1980. Since rising to fame, she has received the coveted Osamu Tezuka award for her manga Robo to Usakichi.

Blue Exorcist is a rare manga that, like Full Metal Alchemist, fits into the shounen genre but is created by a woman. The series follows Rin, a son of Satan, and his journey to become an exorcist, with the goal of slaying his father and avenging his guardian. The series, which began in 2009 and is still ongoing, is both written and drawn by Kato.

Given its popularity, the anime version of the series has also been released on Hulu for foreign audiences, or you can start reading over at Amazon.

10. Yana Toboso (creator of Black Butler)

Born in Saitama and now based in Yokohama, Yana Toboso has been creating manga since 2004. Her best-known and most celebrated work is Black Butler. At the time of writing, Black Butler is twenty-nine volumes deep and has been in circulation since 2006.

Black Butler is a dark manga set in Victorian London, and it follows the story of a young lord whose parents were murdered. When he winds up in the hands of a cult, the young lord enters a Faustian contract with a demon who agrees to help him find and take revenge on his parents’ killers, after which the demon will take the young lord’s soul.

11. Naoko Takeuchi (creator of Sailor Moon)

Few mangaka have left such an enormous and lasting impression on the world of comics and manga as Naoko Tekuchi, creator of Sailor Moon.

Born in Kofu, Yamanashi Prefecture in 1967, Takeuchi has managed to change the world of manga by creating a protagonist who embodies all the tropes and traits of a shounen protagonist. except in this case Sailor Moon was created for for girls, inspired by the artist’s own youth of wearing traditional sailor outfits and attending manga clubs at school, Sailor Moon was born.

A couple of fun facts about Takeuchi are that prior to her career as an artist, she worked as a priest with the name Miko, an experience she wove into the narrative arch of one of Sailor Moon's characters Rei Hino. She is also married to fellow manga legend, and creator of Hunter x Hunter and Yu Yu Hakusho, Yoshihiro Togashi.

You can start your collection with the first volume of Sailor Moon on Amazon.

12. Momoko Sakura (creator of Chibi Maruko-chan)

Sadly, Momoko Sakura is no longer with us, having passed away from breast cancer in 2018. But she left behind an influential legacy in the form of Chibi Maruko-chan, a long-running slice-of-life shoujo manga series.

In publication for ten years, from the mid-80s to the mid-90s, Chibi Maruko-chan is a series which has been adapted into animated shows and films multiple times, keeping its legacy alive. The manga follows the titular Maruko, living in suburban Tokyo with her family and friends. Each issue, Maruko winds up in hot water and has to get herself out of it with the help of her friends.

13. Fumiya Sato (creator of The Kindaichi Case Files)

Winner of the Kodansha Manga Award for her series The Kindaichi Case Files, Fumiya Sato is a quiet legend of the manga world. Her successful series has been running for longer than the monolith One Piece, having begun in 1992 and continuing to this day.

The Kindaichi Case Files, which, at the time of writing, has 82 volumes out, is drawn by Sato but written by two other writers: Yozaburo Kanai and Seimaru Amagi. The series follows teenage detective Hajime Kindaichi as he solves monster-of-the-week locked room mysteries and whodunnits.

14. Katsura Hoshino (creator of D.Gray Man)

In the late 2000s, every emo kid was reading and watching D. Gray Man. This manga, and the anime it inspired, turned a new generation of emo girls and boys into anime fans, and turned its creator - Katsura Hoshino - into a legend.

Hoshino is known today for her gothic tone and imagery, and the 19th century setting of D. Gray Man, which told the story of Allen Walker, a new recruit in the order of exorcists known as the Black Order. The series’ villains are a man known as the Millennium Earl, as well as a reincarnation of the biblical Noah and his band of apostles. It was a series of immense popularity around 2006-2010 and the manga continues its run to this day.

You can find D.Grayman in English on Amazon.

15. Machiko Hasegawa (creator of Sazae-san)

While she died back in 1992, at the age of 72, Machiko Hasegawa remains a prominent legend within the manga industry, being one of the first female mangaka in Japan. Her major work was a comic strip which ran for almost 30 years from the 1940s to her retirement in the 1970s.

Hasegawa’s comic strip, Sazae-san, ran in the popular Asahi Shinbun and it captured the zeitgeist of post-war Japanese family life, with a young girl who represented the modern-day woman leaving Japanese tradition behind and looking to the future. The character was a feminist symbol and Hasegawa herself grew into a prominent feminist as her life went on.

16. Moto Hagio (creator of The Heart of Thomas)

A prominent and founding member of the legendary group of female manga artists Year 24 Group, Moto Hagio is considered one of the founding mothers of shoujo manga. Some of her most notable works in translation are They Were Eleven, The Heart of Thomas, and The Poe Clan.

Hagio began creating manga in the late sixties, and she is still working to this day, after having recently entered her seventies. Her most recent series is a sequel to The Poe Clan, known in English as The Secret Garden, and it began in 2019.

17. Keiko Takemiya (creator of The Door Into Summer)

Keiko Takemiya is another founding member of The 24 Group, a band of female manga artists who took the reins of shoujo manga away from male artists and made themselves the stars of the genre. Takemiya herself is best known for Toward the Terra, The Door into Summer (Natsu e no Tobira) and The Poem of Wind and Trees (Kaze to Ki no Uta).

Takemiya is famous for not only taking shoujo manga and propelling it to the stars, but also for exploring multiple themes and genres from queer romance to science fiction. Her writing and art is as diverse as it is experimental.

18. Yumiko Oshima (creator of The Star of Cottonland)

The third founding member of The 24 Group is Yumiko Oshima, winner of the Kodansha Manga Award for her most famous work: The Star of Cottonland. This series is credited with popularising the catgirl style of manga character, a trope which remains popular to this day.

The Star of Cottonland tells the story of a young cat, adopted by a human, who grows up believing herself to be human. It was an enormously popular shoujo manga in the 1980s and it ran from ‘78 to ‘87.

19. Riyoko Ikeda (creator of The Rose of Versaille)

Born in Osaka and also a member of The 24 Group, Riyoko Ikeda is best known for her popular ‘70s shoujo manga, a series of historical fiction about Marie Antoinette called The Rose of Versaille.

The Rose of Versaille received a 40-episode anime adaptation, as well as a feature-length animated film adaptation. It was an early star of the yuri (girls’ love) genre, and it was even revitalised in 2013 for another 5 years, before finishing once again in 2018.

Check out the first volume of The Rose of Versailles on Amazon.

20. Toshie Kihara (creator of Mari to Shingo)

© Toshie Kihara, Mari to Shingo — © Toshie Kihara, *Mari to Shingo*

While Riyoko Ikeda popularised the yuri genre of shoujo manga, Toshie Kihara - also a member of The 24 Group - was a popular manga artist in the BL (boys’ love) genre, creating popular historical BL manga like Mari to Shingo.

Kihara became known for focussing on historical fiction, often setting her manga in a Japanese historical backdrop, and giving them a romantic twist. She is another example of how The 24 Group shaped and changed the manga landscape, especially in the realm of shoujo manga.

JO SELECTS offers helpful suggestions, and genuine recommendations for high-quality, authentic Japanese art & design. We know how difficult it is to search for Japanese artists, artisans and designers on the vast internet, so we came up with this lifestyle guide to highlight the most inspiring Japanese artworks and designs for your everyday needs.

All product suggestions are independently selected and individually reviewed. We try our best to update information, but all prices and availability are subject to change. Japan Objects is a member of the Amazon affiliates program and if you buy something through our links, Japan Objects may earn an affiliate commission at no cost to you.