Karuho Shiina is a Japanese manga artist born on October 23, 1975, in Haboro, a town in Hokkaido Prefecture, Japan. She began drawing manga at the age of fifteen and made her professional debut in 1991 with the one-shot story Kimi kara no Graduation, published in Shueisha's Deluxe Margaret magazine. After graduating from Hokkaido College of Art & Design, she continued to create numerous short works throughout the 1990s and early 2000s, many of which were collected into single-volume compilations. Titles from this period include Analog Apaato, Orange Apartment, Stand by Me, Garakuta Planet, Ibitsu na Hoshi no Katachi, Hi ga Kuretemo Aruiteru, Sakura Ryou March, Koi ni Ochiru, Ashita wa Docchi da, and Aoi Futari.

Her first serialized series of significant length was Crazy for You, which was published from 2003 to 2005 and compiled into six volumes. However, her most famous and successful work is Kimi ni Todoke, also known as From Me to You. The story follows Sawako Kuronuma, a high school girl who is often misunderstood by her classmates due to her resemblance to the character Sadako from the horror film The Ring, and her gradual journey of forming friendships and finding love with the help of the popular boy Shota Kazehaya. The manga began as a one-shot in August 2005 before starting full serialization in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret in December 2005. It ran for over a decade, concluding in November 2017, and was collected into a total of thirty volumes. The series has achieved significant commercial success, with over thirty-three million copies in circulation, and in 2008, it won the Kodansha Manga Award for best shōjo manga.

The immense popularity of Kimi ni Todoke led to numerous adaptations. The first anime television series aired from October 2009 to March 2010, produced by the studio Production I.G and directed by Hiro Kaburaki. A second season followed in early 2011. More than a decade later, a third season was produced, which began streaming worldwide on Netflix in August 2024. For this third season, Kenichi Matsuzawa took over as director, with Production I.G returning as the animation studio. Karuho Shiina is credited as the original creator for all three seasons. The manga also inspired a live-action film released in 2010 and a live-action television series that premiered in March 2023. In addition to the visual media, the story was adapted into two series of light novels, both illustrated by Shiina. Following the conclusion of the main series, she wrote and illustrated a spin-off sequel titled Kimi ni Todoke: Soulmate, also known as Kimi ni Todoke Bangaihen: Unmei no Hito, which was serialized from 2018 to 2022 and compiled into three volumes. After a break of several years, she began a new serialized manga titled Toppuu to Beat in 2024.

In her personal life, Shiina is married and gave birth to a daughter in 2009, which prompted a temporary hiatus for Kimi ni Todoke from February to September of that year. She has stated that she considers herself to have a clumsy personality and is known to be meticulous about her dialogue and storytelling. Her artistic style is characterized by clean black-and-white panels, expressive but not overly large eyes for the shōjo genre, and a careful, sensitive approach to the psychological development of her characters. Her work has been praised for its mature and heartfelt handling of friendship, communication, and the often slow and uncertain progression of young love. With Kimi ni Todoke, Karuho Shiina created a defining work of modern shōjo manga, achieving both critical acclaim and lasting popularity that continues to reach new audiences through its latest anime adaptation.