He first gained international attention for Hikaru no Go (1999–2003) with Yumi Hotta, but is better known for Death Note (2003–2006) and Bakuman (2008–2012) with Tsugumi Ohba.
[3] Joining the Weekly Shōnen Jump staff, he mentored under Makoto Niwano before starting his first major series, writing and drawing Cyborg Jii-chan G in 1989.
He then created Hikaru no Go with Yumi Hotta, which received the 1999 Shogakukan Manga Award[4] and the 2003 Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize.
It was Shueisha's first manga to be released online in multiple languages before becoming available in print outside Japan and had over 15 million copies in publication as of May 2014.
[9][10] In 2014, he drew a manga adaptation of All You Need Is Kill with Ryōsuke Takeuchi, basing the character designs on Yoshitoshi ABe's original cover to the novel.
[18] In October 2021, Obata teamed up with novelist Akinari Asakura to start the owarai-themed manga series Show-ha Shoten!
He provided character designs for Madhouse's anime adaptations of Osamu Dazai's No Longer Human and Natsume Sōseki's Kokoro, which are parts of the Aoi Bungaku series.
[25] On September 6, 2006, Obata was arrested for illegal possession of an 8.6 cm knife when he was pulled over in Musashino, Tokyo for driving with his car's headlights off at 12:30am.