Yoshihiko Funazaki was a Japanese novelist, poet, illustrator, manga artist, songwriter, and assistant professor born on February 2, 1945, in Tokyo. He died on October 15, 2015, in Mitaka, Tokyo, at the age of 70. After graduating from Gakushuin University in 1968, he worked in a real estate company while also pursuing creative work as a songwriter, screenwriter, and illustrator. In 1969, during a leave of absence, he and his wife Yasuko Funazaki began writing a nonsense tale titled Tonkachi to Hanashōgun. He resigned from the company in 1971 to make his debut as a novelist, eventually writing more than 300 books.

Funazaki is best known as the creator of the Professor Poppen series of children's novels. In 1973, he wrote the first book in the series, Poppen Sensei no Nichiyōbi. The second novel, Poppen Sensei to Kaerazu no Numa, which was published in 1974, won the Akaitori Bungaku Shō, or Redbird Literary Prize. This story was later adapted into an anime film in 1982, with Funazaki credited as the original author and also serving as the animation controller. The Professor Poppen series went on to win the Robō no Ishi Bungakushō, the Roadside Stone Literary Prize, in 1989.

Beyond the Poppen series, Funazaki created the Picasso-kun detective series, which he both wrote and illustrated. The series follows Mitsumoto Sugimoto, a sixth-grade boy who is actually 23 years old after a baseball injury halted his physical growth. The first book, Picasso-kun no tantei chō, was published in 1983. Funazaki was also the recipient of several other major literary awards. His autobiographical work Ame no Dōbutsuen won the Sankei Jidō Shuppan Bunka Shō in 1975 and was selected for the Honor List of the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 1976. His book Anoko ga Mieru was nominated for the Graphic Award at the Bologna International Book Fair in 1976. He also won the Sankei Jidō Shuppan Bunka Shō for Q wa sekaiichi in 1983 and again for Kazehiki Tamago in 1986, as well as the Ehon Nippon Shō for Hakamadare in 1984.

Funazaki's work as an original creator extended into a notable controversy regarding the popular detective manga and anime series Detective Conan. Around 1996, a reader informed Funazaki that Detective Conan bore similarities to his own Picasso-kun no tantei note. After verifying the resemblances himself, he contacted the publisher Shogakukan. The publisher responded that while the creator, Gosho Aoyama, might not have read his work, it was possible that a staff member had been influenced by it. Funazaki found this response offensive and later published a third book in the Picasso-kun series as a protest against Aoyama, documenting the entire inquiry process in a quarterly magazine.