Kentaro Yabuki


Kentaro Yabuki is a Japanese manga artist, best known for his series Black Cat and for illustrating To Love Ru and To Love Ru Darkness alongside author Saki Hasemi. His mentor was Takeshi Obata, the illustrator of Hikaru no Go, Death Note and Bakuman.

Overview

Yabuki has stated that everything he learned about drawing manga, he learned from Akira Toriyama's Dragon Ball. He even admitted that his first publication in Jump was not his own work but actually an illustration combining, or rather fusing together, its characters Gohan and Trunks that he sent in to a 1995 contest and won a prize for. Yabuki was an extra in the 2003 movie , running through the streets of Roppongi Hills.
Yabuki's first popular series, Black Cat, was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Jump between July 2000 and June 2004. It sold over 12 million copies in Japan and was adapted into an anime television series by Gonzo. Both were released in North America. Upon its ending, Yabuki expressed desire to make a sequel or make its characters reappear in another work. Yabuki then teamed up with Saki Hasemi and illustrated the Weekly Shōnen Jump series To Love Ru while Hasemi wrote it. It was released in North America and adapted into several anime television series and original video animations, which have also been released internationally.
In January 2010, Yabuki began illustrating a manga adaptation of Tomohiro Matsu's Mayoi Neko Overrun! light novel series for Jump SQ. before it changed to Jump SQ.19 in May 2010. At the end of the year, Yabuki and Hasemi began To Love Ru Darkness in Jump SQ.. In August 2011 the editorial department suddenly announced that Mayoi Neko Overrun! had ended without giving an explanation. To Love Ru Darkness ran until 2017 and, like the original, the sequel series was released in North America and adapted into several anime television series and OVAs, which have also been released internationally.
In 2014, Yabuki began providing the illustrations for another Matsu light novel series, Hatena Illusion. But the fourth installment released in November 2015 became the last due to Matsu's death in 2016. However, a series titled Hatena Illusion R began in 2019, and Yabuki continues his role as illustrator. From 2018 to 2020, he illustrated a manga adaptation of the Darling in the Franxx anime for the Shōnen Jump+ app and website. Yabuki launched a new manga series titled Ayakashi Triangle in the June 15, 2020 issue of Weekly Shōnen Jump.

Personal life

Yabuki has a daughter with his ex-wife and former manga assistant Shiho Kashiwagi. She worked with him on Black Cat and To Love Ru, and contributed omake to several tankōbon volumes of the former. The two divorced after Kashiwagi had an affair.
In August 2015, Yabuki announced in the September 2015 issue of Jump SQ. that he had gotten married.

Works

Manga