Masashi Ueda (植田 まさし, Ueda Masashi, born 1947 in Tokyo) is a comic book artist who wrote Kobo, the Li'l Rascal (Kobo-chan).Ueda began drawing comic book strips when he worked in his brother's cram school. Ueda began producing Furiten-kun, a comic book strip about a mahjong player, in 1979. In 1982 Ueda won the Bungeishunjū Manga Award. During that year he began producing Kobo, the Li'l Rascal.