Inside Anime’s Ultimate Power Couple: Hunter x Hunter Creator Yoshihiro Togashi and Sailor Moon Creator Naoko Takeuchi

File this under real-life crossovers you genuinely can not make up: the creator of Hunter x Hunter married the creator of Sailor Moon, and they have been quietly doing the power-couple thing since the late 90s.

Togashi x Takeuchi: The manga marriage that actually happened

Yoshihiro Togashi (Yu Yu Hakusho, Hunter x Hunter) and Naoko Takeuchi (Sailor Moon) tied the knot in 1999. That is pushing 27 years together now, and they have two kids. Despite both being industry heavyweights, they have kept their home life extremely low-key — the rare celebrity pairing that does not make a show of it.

Timeline-wise, the marriage landed right as Hunter x Hunter kicked off in 1998, with Togashi coming off the monster success of Yu Yu Hakusho. On Takeuchi’s side, the Sailor Moon manga had wrapped in 1997, so her career-defining run had just finished when they settled down. The two have teamed up professionally more than once over the years, and Takeuchi even pitched in on early Hunter x Hunter volumes.

"They are the true power couple of anime."

How they have backed each other — especially when it got hard

Togashi’s health issues have made the stop-and-start nature of Hunter x Hunter a long-running saga. Through it, Takeuchi has been consistently in his corner. Fans love to brainstorm fixes — everything from a full handoff to Takeuchi to a guided continuation — but Togashi has long preferred to keep drawing the series himself to preserve its voice, even if that means progress can be slow. It is a tough balance, and honestly, their willingness to protect each other’s workload says a lot about the marriage.

Why their work still hits like a truck

Hunter x Hunter gets called the shonen blueprint for a reason. It swings from bright, curious kids like Gon and Killua to the pitch-black edges of the Phantom Troupe and the Chimera Ant arc without breaking tone. It is playful, then merciless, and almost always a step ahead of where you think it is going. The 2011 anime reboot by Madhouse only made that clearer.

Sailor Moon did for magical girls what Dragon Ball did for world-straddling battles: it made the genre feel global. Usagi, Rei, and the rest of the team delivered romance, heroism, and that unmistakable sparkly optimism, while sneaking genuine coming-of-age drama into a pop package. Takeuchi fused action, romance, and the cutesy "cute girls doing cute things" energy into one thing that basically everyone copied afterward.

• Hunter x Hunter (shonen): manga began March 3, 1998; MyAnimeList rating 8.77/10
• Sailor Moon (shoujo): manga ran Dec 28, 1991 to Feb 3, 1997; MyAnimeList rating 8.19/10

The fairytale part is real

Two creators who reshaped their corners of anime found each other, built a private life, and kept at it for nearly three decades. It is sweet, a little surreal, and yes, kind of inspiring.

Where to read

Hunter x Hunter is available on Viz Media. Sailor Moon’s manga is available digitally on Kindle.