Hiromu Arakawa is a Japanese manga artist born on May 8, 1973, in Tokachi, Hokkaido. She grew up on a dairy farm, the second of five sisters, and this rural upbringing would later deeply influence her work. From a young age, she aspired to create manga, often drawing in her textbooks during school. After graduating high school, she took oil painting classes once a month for seven years while continuing to work on her family's farm. During this period, she also created dōjinshi (self-published manga) with friends and drew yonkoma (four-panel comics) for a magazine. She moved to Tokyo in the summer of 1999 to pursue a full-time career in manga. Arakawa is married and has three children. She often draws a self-portrait of a bespectacled cow, a humorous nod to her farming roots.

Arakawa began her professional career as an assistant to Hiroyuki Etō, the creator of the manga Mahōjin Guru Guru. Her first original work, Stray Dog, was published in Square Enix's Monthly Shōnen Gangan in 1999, where it won the ninth 21st Century Shōnen Gangan Award. She followed this with a single chapter of Shanghai Yōmakikai in 2000.

Her breakthrough came in July 2001 with the launch of Fullmetal Alchemist in Monthly Shōnen Gangan. The series, which ran until July 2010, became an international phenomenon. Spanning 108 chapters collected in 27 volumes, the story follows brothers Edward and Alphonse Elric, who use alchemy in a failed attempt to resurrect their mother, resulting in Edward losing limbs and Alphonse losing his entire body. The series is known for its deep exploration of ethics, sacrifice, and the consequences of knowledge. For this work, Arakawa won the 49th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category in 2004 and the 42nd Seiun Award for Best Science Fiction Comic in 2011.

Following the success of Fullmetal Alchemist, Arakawa continued to produce notable works. From 2006 to the present, she has published Hyakushō Kizoku (Noble Farmer), a semi-autobiographical comedy manga about her experiences growing up on a farm. In April 2011, she began Silver Spoon in Shogakukan's Weekly Shōnen Sunday. Departing from fantasy, this realistic story follows a city boy who enrolls at an agricultural school in Hokkaido, drawing directly from Arakawa's own life. Silver Spoon was a critical and commercial success, winning the 5th Manga Taishō Award and the 58th Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category, both in 2012. In July 2013, she started a manga adaptation of Yoshiki Tanaka's epic fantasy novel series The Heroic Legend of Arslan, published in Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine. Her most recent major work is Daemons of the Shadow Realm, which began serialization in Monthly Shōnen Gangan on December 10, 2021.

Arakawa's manga have seen frequent and significant adaptation into other media. Fullmetal Alchemist was adapted into two anime television series by the studio Bones. For the first adaptation, which began in 2003, Arakawa assisted the studio in early development but was not involved in writing the script, leading to an original ending that diverged from the still-incomplete manga. For the second adaptation, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood (2009-2010), she was able to show the director her plans for the manga's ending, allowing the anime to conclude much closer to the source material. Silver Spoon was adapted into an anime series by A-1 Pictures, which began airing in July 2013. An anime adaptation of Hyakushō Kizoku was announced in 2022. Her manga adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan has also been adapted into an anime series. She was responsible for the character designs for the anime adaptation of Hero Tales.

Several recurring themes and a distinct artistic identity define Arakawa's work. Her narratives frequently explore profound philosophical concepts such as the ethics of science, the nature of sacrifice, the meaning of family, and the consequences of pursuing power and knowledge. The law of equivalent exchange from Fullmetal Alchemist, which posits that something cannot be gained without something of equal value being lost, is a prime example of this. Her personal experience with the hard work and discipline of farm life in Hokkaido directly shaped the realistic setting and themes of Silver Spoon. Her art style is characterized by clean, detailed lines and expressive character designs. She skillfully balances dark, serious moments with humor, often using her signature comedic relief to temper heavy emotional scenes. Arakawa has cited Suihō Tagawa, the author of Norakuro, as the root of her artistic style. She has also named Rumiko Takahashi, Shigeru Mizuki, the duo Yudetamago (creators of Kinnikuman), and American comic artist Mike Mignola as influences.

Hiromu Arakawa holds significant importance in the manga industry. Her success with Fullmetal Alchemist, which has sold tens of millions of copies worldwide, made her one of the most internationally recognizable manga artists of her generation. The series is frequently cited as one of the best manga of all time. Her decision to adopt a masculine pen name (her real given name is Hiromi) to avoid gender bias in the male-dominated shōnen manga industry has been noted as a challenge to industry norms. The depth of her storytelling and the consistent quality of her work across different genres, from dark fantasy to slice-of-life comedy, have earned her the respect of peers, critics, and a global fanbase. Her numerous major awards, including the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize New Artist Prize in 2011, cement her legacy as one of the most successful and influential manga creators of the modern era.