Aruko is a Japanese manga artist born on July 26 in Ishikawa Prefecture. She made her professional debut in 1999 with the one-shot Ame no Chi Hare, published in the magazine Bessatsu Margaret. Her first serialized manga was Yasuko to Kenji, which ran from 2005 to 2006 and was later adapted into a television drama.

Aruko is best known as the illustrator for two major shōjo manga series written by other authors. From 2011 to 2016, she collaborated with writer Kazune Kawahara on My Love Story!! (Ore Monogatari!!). The series was serialized in Bessatsu Margaret and became a significant success, receiving an anime television adaptation as well as a live-action film. For her work on My Love Story!!, Aruko (as the illustrator) was a recipient of the 2013 Kodansha Manga Award in the shōjo category and the 2016 Shogakukan Manga Award in the same category.

Beginning in June 2019, Aruko illustrated My Love Mix-Up! (Kieta Hatsukoi), written by Wataru Hinekure. Serialized in Bessatsu Margaret until 2022, this series also achieved commercial and critical success, receiving a television drama adaptation and winning the Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōjo category in 2022. These works establish Aruko as a prominent artistic collaborator in the shōjo genre, whose visual storytelling has been central to multiple award-winning and multi-platform media franchises.