Ichiko Hashimoto is a Japanese jazz pianist, composer, singer, and voice actor born on July 1, 1952 in Kobe, Japan. She began playing piano at age five and later graduated from Musashino Academia Musicae in 1975. In the world of anime, Hashimoto is most recognized for her dual contribution as both the music composer and a voice actor for the series RahXephon, a mecha anime that aired in 2002. She was initially approached to compose only part of the score but requested to compose all of it, ultimately producing three hours of music across three CDs, including the ending theme which she performed with her sister Mayumi Hashimoto.

As a voice actor, Hashimoto is primarily known for her role as Maya Kamina in the RahXephon franchise. She voiced this character in both the original twenty-six episode television series and the 2003 film adaptation RahXephon: Pluralitas Concentio. Maya Kamina is the mother of the protagonist Ayato Kamina, and Hashimoto portrays her as a calm, cool, and capable career woman with a complex and sympathetic nature as a villainous figure. Her voice work on the series is noted as an example of a creator taking on a voice acting role, as she was simultaneously composing the show's music. Over a decade later, Hashimoto returned to voice acting with a role in the 2012 cult classic series Lupin III: The Woman Called Fujiko Mine, where she once again voiced a character described as a villainous mother. She also had a voice role in the 1999 anime film Clover.

Hashimoto has shown recurring collaborations with certain production staff and fellow actors. She worked with voice actors Hiro Shimono and Yu Sugimoto on both the television series and film versions of RahXephon. In the Code Geass spin-off project Akito the Exiled, for which she composed the music, she collaborated with voice actors Reiko Suzuki and Hiromichi Tezuka across multiple chapters of the series. Her most consistent musical collaborator is her sister, Mayumi Hashimoto, with whom she co-wrote and performed the ending theme for RahXephon.