Maiko Uchino is a Japanese manga artist and CAD drafter known for creating the manga Slow Loop, which was adapted into an anime television series in 2022. She is a female creator who has been active in the industry since her debut in 2016. Her professional name is also written as Uchino Maiko, and she is sometimes referred to by the Chinese characters for her name, Neiye Wuzi.

Uchino began her manga career with her debut work, Seven Gods Only, which started serialization in Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Miracle magazine in 2016. She primarily publishes her work through Houbunsha and is closely associated with the company’s kirara line of magazines, which are known for featuring four-panel comic strips centered on daily life and hobbies. Her most prominent work, Slow Loop, is a recreational fishing manga that she writes and illustrates. The series began serialization in Manga Time Kirara Forward in September 2018 and has been compiled into multiple tankōbon volumes. In 2022, the manga was adapted into an anime television series produced by the studio Connect. After concluding its run in Manga Time Kirara Forward in February 2025, the series moved to the Comic Fuz manga app, and it was announced that Uchino would be taking a hiatus from the work to receive treatment for breast cancer.

Beyond her own serialized works, Uchino has contributed to anthology comics for other popular series. She participated in the Yuru Camp Anthology Comic and contributed to the Bocchi the Rock! Anthology Comic, illustrating a chapter for the latter. She has also worked as an illustrator for end cards in anime productions, including an end card for the fourth episode of Asteroid in Love and for the first episode of Is the Order a Rabbit? Bloom.

Uchino’s personal interests, particularly fishing and outdoor activities, directly inform the themes and settings of her original work Slow Loop. She maintains professional relationships with other creators in the kirara publishing ecosystem, including Harikamo, Hamaji Aki, and Kiki. A notable instance of her engagement with the community occurred in 2019 when a planned kirara exhibition was postponed due to a typhoon; Uchino created and posted more than ten drawings of kirara series characters on social media in a single day, calling it a one-person kirara exhibition. Her significance in the industry stems from her work within the niche but influential genre of hobby-focused, slice-of-life manga, culminating in the anime adaptation of Slow Loop, which brought her original creation to a wider audience. Her ongoing health-related hiatus and the continuation of her series on a digital platform represent a recent development in her career as an original creator.