Hikaru Akao is a Japanese voice actress born on June 16, 1995, in Saitama Prefecture. As of 2025, she is affiliated with the talent agency I'm Enterprise. Her journey to becoming a voice actress began in her sixth year of elementary school after watching the anime Naruto, though she initially disliked her own voice. Her interest in broadcasting led her to join her junior high school's broadcasting club, which helped her gain confidence in using her voice. It was during her second year of high school, after seeing a pamphlet for a voice acting training school, that she decided to pursue the career professionally. She graduated from the Japan Narration Actor Institute in 2015 and joined I'm Enterprise the same year.

Akao's debut in anime came in 2016 with minor roles in series such as Love Live! Sunshine!! and Jinsei. She gained experience in the following years with supporting parts, including the role of Lulune Louie in the 2017 series Is It Wrong to Try to Pick Up Girls in a Dungeon?: Sword Oratoria. Her first leading role arrived in 2018 when she was cast as Kaoruko Moeta in the anime Comic Girls. That same year, she also voiced Chika Sugihara in Back Street Girls: Gokudols. In 2019, she was cast as Yulia "Yuusha" Sharudetto, the protagonist of the fantasy series Endro!.

The years that followed saw Akao take on a wide variety of roles, demonstrating her range across different genres. In 2020, she voiced Ichika Tsumura in the fashion industry anime Smile Down the Runway, Maryberry in the magical idol series Lapis Re:LiGHTs, and Riri Hitotsuyanagi in the action franchise Assault Lily Bouquet. The year 2021 brought the lead role of Seria Morino in the multimedia project Gekidol. That same year, she reprised her role as Riri Hitotsuyanagi in the short anime Assault Lily Fruits and voiced Sayaka Murasaki in the original video animation Alice in Deadly School, a work that originated from the Gekidol project. Her other notable credits from this period include Kibō Kohinata in Granbelm (2019) and Koharu Shimoe in the Blue Archive: 1.5th Anniversary Short Animation (2021).

Her work is not limited to anime; Akao has also built an extensive career in video games. Some of her most prominent game roles include Suelle Malen in Atelier Lydie & Suelle, the titular character Atri in ATRI: My Dear Moments, Bubble in Arknights, and Koharu Shimoe in Blue Archive. In 2018, she also became a member of the voice actress unit teaRLove. A significant milestone in her career came in 2022 when she was one of the recipients of the Best New Actress Award at the 16th Seiyu Awards, a prestigious annual ceremony recognizing excellence in voice acting.