Naoko Takeuchi (武内 直子 Takeuchi Naoko, born March 15, 1967) is a Japanese manga artist. She is best known for her manga series Codename: Sailor V (1991–1997) and Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon (1991–1997).

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She earned the 2nd Nakayoshi Comic Prize for Newcomers in 1985 for Yume ja Nai no Ne and the 1986 New Artist award for Love Call. Her next manga Sailor Moon, went on to become one of the most popular and successful manga around the world, with over 35 million copies sold worldwide. In 1993, she earned the Kodansha Manga Award for the series. Overseas, Sailor Moon's anime adaptations have been more successful than the manga and are credited with boosting Japanese animation's popularity in the Western world.

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Before becoming a manga artist, Takeuchi worked as a miko at the Shiba Daijingu shrine near her university.This experience later became the basis for one of her characters in Sailor Moon, Rei Hino. After graduating from Kyoritsu University of Pharmacy, Takeuchi entered the manga industry by submitting Love Call to Kodansha at the age of 19, which received an award. She worked steadily on one-shot pieces until writing Maria, which was published inNakayoshi from early to mid-1990.

 

She based this work, her first serial comic, loosely on Daddy-Long-Legs and on her friend Marie Koizumi, who helped her write it. After completing Maria, Takeuchi worked on the ice-skating series The Cherry Project which was serialized in Nakayoshi from late 1990 to 1991. While working on The Cherry Project, Takeuchi wanted to do a manga on outer space and girl fighters. Her editor, Fumio Osano, asked her to put the fighters in sailor-suits. This concept would later become a one-shot called Codename: Sailor V, which would later begin serialization in RunRun. When Toei Animation planned to adapt her manga into an anime series, she reworked Sailor V and added four other super heroines.

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In December 1991, Nakayoshi began serializing Sailor Moon, and became an instant hit. The success encouraged Takeuchi to work on both Sailor Moon and Sailor V from 1991 to 1997. However, RunRun was canceled with the November 1997 issue, and the planned Sailor V anime adaptation was canceled with it. During that 6-year period, she produced 52 chapters that were collected in 18 volumes. Moreover, the success of the manga led to two anime adaptations, three animated films, a live-action adaptation, numerous video games, and mega-merchandising.

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At the series' end, Takeuchi worked on PQ Angels for Nakayoshi. This gained a fair amount of popularity but was canceled due to Kodansha losing seven pages of her manuscript. Takeuchi said that Toei Animation had the manuscript, therefore it would have been possible to create an anime adaptation of the series.

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Takeuchi's own studio is called "Princess Naoko Planning" (PNP). Takeuchi established PNP to manage her properties, mainly Sailor Moon. Later the studio encompassed Yoshihiro Togashi's work as well and showed up in the credits for such anime as Level E andHunter × Hunter. Its name shows up on several musical credits such as Shin Kaguya Shima Densetsu.

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Takeuchi has won several awards, including the 2nd Nakayoshi Comic Prize for Newcomers for Yume ja Nai no Ne in 1985. She also won for "Love Call", which won Nakayoshi's New Artist award which debuted in the Nakayoshi Deluxe September 1986 issue. In 1993 she won the 17th Kodansha Manga Award for shōjo for Sailor Moon.