Asa Higuchi is a Japanese manga artist born on May 17, 1970, in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture, a city now part of Saitama City. Her early life in Saitama provided foundational experiences that would later inform her work; she was a member of her middle school and high school softball teams, and she graduated from Urawanishi High School. She went on to study at Hosei University, where she majored in psychology within the Faculty of Letters, with a specific focus on sports psychology.

Higuchi’s career as a professional manga artist began in 1998 after she won a competition in the magazine Monthly Afternoon with her work Yuku Tokoro. That same year, the piece was published in the magazine’s August issue, marking her official debut. In the early 2000s, she serialized two works in Monthly Afternoon that focused on personal relationships and family dynamics: Kazoku no Sore Kara in 2000 and Yasashii Watashi from 2001 to 2002. These early works established a style noted for its detailed psychological exploration of its characters.

Higuchi is best known as the creator of Big Windup! (Ōkiku Furikabutte), a manga centered on high school baseball. The series began serialization in Monthly Afternoon in September 2003 and, as of November 2024, has been collected into 37 tankōbon volumes. The series marked a departure from her previous work, as she moved from dramas about family and romance to sports. The story draws on her own experiences in sports and integrates elements of sports science and mental training. Her high school served as a model for the school depicted in the series.

The success of the manga led to two anime adaptations produced by the studio A-1 Pictures. The first season, directed by Tsutomu Mizushima, aired 25 episodes from April to September 2007, followed by a 13-episode second season broadcast from April to June 2010. Higuchi was involved in the production as a supervisor.

Big Windup! has been both a commercial and critically acclaimed work. By August 2023, the manga had over 18 million copies in circulation. In 2006, it was awarded the 10th Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize for best creative work, and in 2007, it won the 31st Kodansha Manga Award in the general manga category.

Her artistic identity is characterized by a focus on detailed psychological portrayals and the nuanced relationships between characters, often conveyed through distinctive dialogue. This approach, evident in her early works, became a defining feature of Big Windup!, which is noted for its realistic depiction of team dynamics and the mental aspects of baseball. Her background in psychology and her personal history as a softball player are frequently cited as influences that contribute to the depth and authenticity of her storytelling.