Yumi Tada
Yumi Tada (多田由美, b. 1963, Osaka) is a manga artist and illustrator. She made her debut in 1986 when Warren's Daughter won the Kadokawa Shoten Asuka Manga Award and appeared in Monthly Asuka. Working mainly in short stories, many of them set in the United States, she developed a cinematic, film-influenced way of telling a story and a refined drawing style that stood apart from the shōjo manga of its time and has influenced a younger generation of artists.
Beyond manga, Tada designed the characters for the 2002 OVA adaptation of Chōhei Kambayashi's Sentou Yousei Yukikaze, for which she also worked on the script and wrote the theme song lyrics, and drew its manga adaptation. She illustrated the covers of the Japanese editions of Charlaine Harris's True Blood novels (SB Bunko). An early adopter of digital drawing, she now works largely in Procreate on the iPad, has published two technique books on the subject and shares her working process on YouTube and social media. She is an associate professor at Kobe Design University and teaches manga at Amusement Media Academy in Osaka.
Tada's recent manga include Red Velvet (Kodansha) and the comic adaptation of Orokamono no Mibun. In 2025 she held a solo exhibition of original works at 9DAYS GALLERY in Shibuya, Tokyo. Yumi Tada's work is presented in Europe by Tokiol.
Selected exhibitions
2025 Yumi Tada, solo exhibition, 9DAYS GALLERY, Shibuya Modi, Tokyo
Publications
Procreate de Egaku Digital Sakuga no Gokui, PIE International, 2024
iPad Pro + Procreate: Manga, Illust no Kakikata, Genkosha, 2020
Red Velvet (3 vols.), Kodansha, 2018
YUKIKAZE, Hayakawa Shobo, 2003
