Yumi Hotta(堀田 由美Hotta Yumi, most often written as ほった ゆみ) is a Japanese mangaka, born in Aichi Prefecture, Japan in 1957. Hotta is best known as the author of the best-selling manga and anime series Hikaru no Go, about the game of go that is widely credited for the recent boom of the game 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 and the 2003 Tez