A Japanse shoujo manga-ka. She is known for her works Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, Ceres: The Celestial Legend, Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend. She likes all music, except heavy metal and old traditional music.

She received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōjo for Ceres, Celestial Legend in 1997. Since writing her debut short story "Pajama de Ojama" ("An Intrusion in Pajamas"), Watase has created more than 80 compiled volumes of short stories and continuing series. Because of her frequent use of beautiful male characters in her works, she is widely regarded in circles[which?] as a bishōnen manga artist.[citation needed] In October 2008, Watase began her first shōnen serialization, Arata: The Legend in Weekly Shōnen Sunday.
Her name is romanized as "Yû Watase" in earlier printings of Viz Media's publications of Fushigi Yūgi, Alice 19th, and Ceres, The Celestial Legend, while in Viz Media's Fushigi Yūgi Genbu Kaiden and Absolute Boyfriend her name is romanized as "Yuu Watase". In Chuang Yi's English-language versions of Fushigi Yugi (spelled without a macron or circumflex), her name is romanized as "Yu Watase".