Naoshi Arakawa is a Japanese manga artist best known as the creator of the critically and commercially successful series Your Lie in April. Born and raised in the Japanese countryside, he grew up reading manga magazines such as Weekly Shōnen Jump and Monthly Shōnen Magazine, with early influences including Fist of the North Star and Kinnikuman. These childhood experiences ultimately inspired his decision to pursue a career as a manga author, though he kept this ambition to himself due to his shy personality and the conservative nature of his hometown. Following advice from a college friend, Arakawa entered the Monthly Shōnen Magazine Grand Challenge. The one-shot he submitted for this contest would later serve as the foundation for his most famous work, Your Lie in April. After working as an assistant to other manga artists, he made his serialization debut with a manga adaptation of the novel A School Frozen in Time, which ran in Monthly Shōnen Magazine from December 2007 to April 2009 and was compiled into four volumes.

Arakawa's second serialized work, Sayonara, Football, ran in Magazine E-no from June 2009 to August 2010 and was published in two volumes. This girls' soccer manga marked the beginning of his ongoing interest in sports narratives, a theme he would revisit later in his career. Following the completion of Sayonara, Football, Arakawa wanted to try something new and initially attempted to create a music-focused story, but his first proposal was rejected. Returning to the original one-shot from his contest entry for inspiration, he created Your Lie in April. The series ran in Monthly Shōnen Magazine from April 2011 to February 2015 and was collected in eleven volumes. Your Lie in April won the Best Shōnen Manga award at the 37th Kodansha Manga Awards in 2013. The series was adapted into a television anime that aired from October 2014 to March 2015, as well as a live-action film released in September 2016. Arakawa also created a spinoff manga, Your Lie in April: Coda, for the Japanese Blu-ray release of the anime adaptation, and provided illustrations for a light novel spinoff titled Your Lie in April - A Six Person Etude.

For his next major project, Arakawa decided to create a sequel to Sayonara, Football, titled Farewell, My Dear Cramer. This series continued following the soccer careers of its characters, shifting the setting to high school. It ran in Monthly Shōnen Magazine from May 2016 to December 2020 and was published in fourteen volumes. The title is a reference to the German football coach Dettmar Cramer. Farewell, My Dear Cramer received a television anime adaptation by studio Liden Films, which aired from April to June 2021. A film adaptation covering the events of Sayonara, Football, titled Farewell, My Dear Cramer: First Touch, was released in June 2021. Arakawa continued to produce new work after completing Farewell, My Dear Cramer. He released a preview for his next manga, Atwight Game, in September 2022, and the series was serialized in Weekly Shōnen Magazine from September 2022 to April 2023. His most recent series, Orion's Board, a story combining shogi, youth, and romance, began serialization in Weekly Shōnen Magazine in January 2024.

Across his body of work, Arakawa has demonstrated a particular talent for blending emotional, character-driven drama with the structured worlds of competitive activities. His major series have centered on classical music performance, as seen in Your Lie in April, and on women's soccer, as seen in Sayonara, Football and Farewell, My Dear Cramer. This thematic focus on young protagonists navigating the pressures and passions of artistic or athletic pursuits has become a signature element of his work, often exploring themes of rivalry, personal trauma, perseverance, and the complex relationships that form between dedicated individuals. His artistic identity is defined by his ability to convey deep emotional states and internal conflicts, frequently using the specific discipline at the center of each story as a visual and narrative language for the characters' inner lives. The success of Your Lie in April, in particular, established Arakawa as a significant figure in modern shōnen manga, demonstrating that stories centered on emotional intimacy and artistic endeavor could achieve widespread popularity and critical recognition alongside more action-oriented genre fare. His continued exploration of sports manga with Farewell, My Dear Cramer further solidified his reputation as a creator capable of handling different types of competitive narratives while maintaining his characteristic focus on character psychology and emotional depth.