Mitsuyoshi Sonoda was a Japanese manga artist born in Osaka on December 7, 1940. He began his career in 1958 during the era of lending library manga, debuting with the short story collection Shiken Yūshirō under the pen name Hidekazu Arikawa. Throughout the early 1960s, he built a reputation by publishing numerous works in rental manga magazines such as Keiji, Gorilla Magazine, and Mazō, as well as creating original hardboiled series for Tokyo Top Company. Titles like Chōsen Shikaku and Iron Muscle from this period received notable critical praise. In 1963, he transitioned to mainstream少年 manga magazines with Kuruma Daisuke, a judo story written by Minoru Kume serialized in Weekly Shōnen King. He changed his professional name to Mitsuyoshi Sonoda in 1964.

Sonoda is best known as the illustrator of the manga Akakichi no Eleven, which was written by Ikki Kajiwara. The story follows the hot-headed freshman Shingo Tamai and his journey to build a championship soccer team under the demanding coach Tenpei Matsuki. The manga was serialized in Weekly Shōnen King from 1970 to 1971 and later compiled into six volumes by Shōnen Gahōsha. An anime television adaptation produced by Tokyo TV Douga aired on Nippon Television from April 13, 1970, to April 5, 1971, spanning 52 episodes. This series is recognized as the first anime ever dedicated to the sport of soccer. The anime gained significant popularity among young male viewers in Japan at the time and was later broadcast internationally, including in Italy under the title Arrivano i Superboys. Sonoda is credited for the original manga concept as the illustrator, while the adaptation was directed by Takeshi Yamada and Nobuhiro Okasako.

Beyond this landmark sports series, Sonoda worked on a range of other notable manga. He illustrated Akatasuki Sentōtai, written by Shunsuke Sagara, which became controversial in the 1960s for its military themes and has since largely fallen out of circulation. He also created the series Target and contributed to historical manga such as Sangokushi, a take on the Chinese classic Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Around 1979, he collaborated with scriptwriter Sentarō Kubota on historical works like Fūun Tenkatori and Sengoku Saru Mawashi Nobunaga Hidekichi to Hachisuka Koroku. Mitsuyoshi Sonoda passed away in March 1997 at the age of 56. His career spanned the transition from rental libraries to weekly magazines, and his work on Akakichi no Eleven cemented his place in anime history as a pioneer of the sports genre.