Yumi Hotta (堀田 由美, Hotta Yumi, most often written as ほった ゆみ, born October 15, 1957) is a Japanese manga artist.
Hotta is best known as the author of the best-selling manga and anime series Hikaru no Go, which is widely credited for the late 90s-2000s boom of the game of go in Japan.
The idea behind Hikaru no Go began when Yumi Hotta played a pick-up game of go with her father-in-law. She thought that it might be fun to create a manga based on this traditional board game, and began the work under the title of Nine Stars (九つの星, Kokonotsu no Hoshi), named for the nine "star points" on a go board. She later worked with Takeshi Obata (the illustrator) and Yukari Umezawa (5-Dan, the supervisor) in the creation of Hikaru no Go. She won the 2000 Shogakukan Manga Award[1] and the 2003 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for Hikaru no Go.
Hotta's husband is Kiyonari Hotta (堀田 清成, Hotta Kiyonari), another manga artist known for manga about horse-racing. He was also well known as a contributor to the Chunichi Shimbun where he illustrated under the pen name Yumi Hotta (ほった ゆみ, Hotta Yumi).
